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“l ALWAYS THOUGHT YOU WERE TALl” 

Page 71 





THE GENTLEMAN 
FROM INDIANA 


BY 

BOOTH TARKINGTON 



GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
19S0 




COPYRIGHT, 1899, 1902, BY 

DOUBLEDAY. PAGE & COMPANY 


^ 0 3> D Cj 

V -L. 



JOHN CLEVE GREEN 








a 






CONTENTS 

OBAFTEK PAGE! 

I. The Young Man Who Came to Stay. 3 

n. The Stbange Lady.21 

in. Lonesomeness.43 

IV. The Walkus and the Carpenter . 59 

V. At the Pasture Bars: Elder-bushes 

May Have Stings.83 

VI. June.96 

VII. Morning: “Some in Bags and Some in 

Tags and Some in Velvet Gowns”. 115 

VIII. Glad Afternoon: The Girl by the 

Blue Tent-pole.151 

IX. Night: It Is Bad Luck to Sing Be¬ 
fore Breakfast.177 

X. The Court-House Bell . . . 211 

XI. John Brown’s Body. 242 

Xn. Jerry the Teller. 260 

XIII. James Fisbee. 291 

XIV. A Rescue. 319 

XV. Nettles.343 







CONTENTS 


CHAPTEB 

XVI. Pretty Marquise .... 375 

XVII. Helen’s Toast. 404 

XVni. The Treachery of H. Fisbee . . 432 

XIX. The Great Harkless Comes Home . 453 


CHAPTER I 


THE YOUNG MAN WHO CAME TO STAY 

T here is a fertile stretch of flat lands in 
Indiana where unagrarian Eastern travellers, 
glancing from car-windows, shudder and 
return their eyes to interior upholstery, preferring 
even the swaying caparisons of a Pullman to the 
monotony without. The landscape lies intermin¬ 
ably level: bleak in winter, a desolate plain of mud 
and snow; hot and dusty in summer, in its flat lone^ 
someness, miles on miles with not one cool hill 
slope away from the sun. The persistent tourist 
who seeks for signs of man in this sad expanse per¬ 
ceives a reckless amount of rail fence; at intervals 
a large barn; and, here and there, man himself, 
incurious, patient, slow, looking up from the fields 
apathetically as the Limited flies by. Widely 
separated from each other are small frame railway 
stations—sometimes with no other building in sight, 
v/hich indicates that somewhere behind the adjacent 


4 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


woods a few shanties and thin cottages are grouped 
about a couple of brick stores. 

On the station platforms there are always two or 
three wooden packing-boxes, apparently marked for 
travel, but they are sacred from disturbance and 
remain on the platform forever; possibly the right 
train never comes along. They serve to enthrone 
a few station loafers, who look out from under their 
hat-brims at the faces in the car-windows with the 
languid scorn a permanent fixture always has for 
a transient, and the pity an American feels for a 
fellow-being who does not live in his town. Now 
and then the train passes a town built scatteringly 
about a court-house, with a mill or two humming 
near the tracks. This is a county-seat, and the 
inhabitants and the local papers refer to it confi¬ 
dently as “our city.” The heart of. the flat lands is 
a central area called Carlow County, and the county- 
seat of Carlow is a town unhappily named in honor 
of its first settler,William Platt, who christened it with 
his blood. Natives of this place have sometimes re¬ 
marked, easily,that their city had a population of from 
five to six thousand souls. It is easy to forgive them 
for such statements; civic pride is a virtue. 

The social and business energy of Plattville con' 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 5 


centrales on the Square. Here, in summer-time, 
the gentlemen are wont to lounge from store to store 
in their shirt sleeves; and here stood the old, red¬ 
brick court-house, loosely fenced in a shady grove 
of maple and elm—“shpp’ry ellum”—called the 
“Court-House Yard.’’ When the sun grew too hot 
for the dry-goods box whittlers in front of the 
stores around the Square and the occupants of the 
chairs in front of the Palace Hotel on the corner, 
they would go across and drape themselves over the 
court-house fence, under the trees, and leisurely 
carve their initials on the top board. The farmers 
hitched their teams to the fence, for there were 
usually loafers energetic enough to shout “Whoa!” 
if the flies worried the horses beyond patience. In 
the yard, amongst the weeds and tall, unkept grass, 
chickens foraged all day long; the fence was so low 
that the most matronly hen flew over with pro¬ 
priety; and there were gaps that accommodated the 
passage of itinerant pigs. Most of the latter, how¬ 
ever, preferred the cool wallows of the less important 
street corners. Here and there a big dog lay asleep 
in the middle of the road, knowing well that the 
easy-going Samaritan, in his case, would pass by 
on the other side. 


6 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


Only one street attained to the dignity of a name 
—Main Street, which formed the north side of the 
Square. In Carlow County, descriptive location is 
usually accomplished by designating the adjacent, 
as, “Up at Bardlocks’,” “Down by Schofields’,” 
“Right where Hibbards live,” “Acrost from Sol. 
Tibbs’s,” or, “Other side of Jones’s field.” In 
winter. Main Street was a series of frozen gorges 
and hummocks; in fall and spring, a river of mud; 
in summer, a continuing dust heap; it was the best 
street in Plattville. 

The people lived happily; and, while the world 
whirled on outside, they were content with their 
own. It would have moved their surprise as much 
as their indignation to hear themselves spoken ot as 
a “secluded community”; for they sat up all night 
to hear the vote of New York, every campaign. 
Once when the President visited Rouen, seventy 
miles away, there were only few bankrupts (and 
not a baby amongst them) left in the deserted homes 
of Carlow County. Everybody had adventures; 
almost everybody saw the great man; and every¬ 
body was glad to get back home again. It was the 
longest journey some of them ever set upon, and 
these, elated as they were over their travels, deter- 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 7 

mined to think twice ere they went that far from 
home another time. 

On Saturdays, the farmers enlivened the commer¬ 
cial atmosphere of Plattville; and Miss Tibbs, the 
postmaster’s sister and clerk, used to make a point 
of walking up and down Main Street as often as 
possible, to get a thrill in the realization of some 
poetical expressions that haunted her pleasingly; 
phrases she had employed frequently in her poems 
for the “Carlow County Herald.” When thirty or 
forty country people were scattered along the side¬ 
walks in front of the stores on Main Street, she 
would walk at nicely calculated angles to the differ¬ 
ent groups so as to leave as few gaps as possible 
between the figures, making them appear as near a 
sohd phalanx as she could. Then she would mur¬ 
mur to herself, with the accent of soulful revel, 
“The thronged city streets,” and, “Within the 
thronged city,” or, “Where the thronging crowds 
were swarming and the great cathedral rose.” 
Although she had never been beyond Carlow and 
the bordering counties in her life, all her poems 
were of city streets and bustling multitudes. She 
was one of those who had been unable to join the 
excursion to Rouen when the President was there; 


8 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


but she had listened avidly to her friends’ descrip¬ 
tions of the crowds. Before that time her muse had 
been sylvan, speaking of “Flow’rs of May,” and 
hinting at thoughts that overcame her when she 
roved the woodlands thro’; but now the inspiration 
was become decidedly municipal and urban, evi¬ 
dently reluctant to depart beyond the retail portions 
of a metropolis. Her verses beginning, ‘‘O, my 
native city, bride of Hibbard’s winding stream,” 
—Hibbard’s Creek runs west of Plattville, except in 
time of drought—“When thy myriad lights are 
shining, and thy faces, like a dream. Go flitting down 
thy sidewalks when their daily toil is done,” were 
pronounced, at the time of their publication, the 
best poem that had ever appeared in the “Herald.” 

This unlucky newspaper was a thorn in the side 
of every patriot of Carlow County. It was a poor 
paper; everybody laiew it was a poor paper; it was 
so poor that everybody admitted it was a poor paper 
—worse, the neighboring county of Amo possessed 
a better paper, the “Amo Gazette.” The “Carlow 
County Herald” was so everlastingly bad that 
Plattville people bent their heads bitterly and 
admitted even to citizens of Amo that the “Gazette” 
was the better paper. The “Herald” was a weekly. 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA H 


issued on Saturday; sometimes it hung fire over 
Sunday and appeared Monday evening. In their 
pride, tlie Carlow people supported the “Herald” 
loyally and long; but finally subscriptions began to 
fall off and the “Gazette” gained them. It came 
to pass that the “Herald” missed fire altogether 
for several weeks; then it came out feebly, two small 
advertisements occupying the whole of the fourth 
page. It was breathing its last. The editor was a 
clay-colored gentleman with a goatee, whose one 
surreptitious eye betokened both indolence of dis¬ 
position and a certain furtive shrewdness. He col¬ 
lected all the outstanding subscriptions he could, 
on the morning of the issue just mentioned, and, 
thoughtfully neglecting several items on the other 
side of the ledger, departed from Plattville forever. 

The same afternoon a young man from the East 
alighted on the platform of the railway station, north 
of the town, and, entering the rickety omnibus 
that lingered there, seeking whom it might rattle 
to deafness, demanded to be driven to the Herald 
Building. It did not strike the driver that the 
newcomer was precisely a gay young man when 
he climbed into the omnibus; but, an hour later, 
as he stood in the doorway of the edifice he had 


10 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


indicated as his destination, depression seemed to 
have settled into the marrow of his bones. 

Plattville was instantly alert to the stranger’s 
presence, and interesting conjectures were hazarded 
all day long at the back door of Martin’s Dry-Goods 
Emporium, where all the clerks from the stores 
around the Square came to play checkers or look 
on at the game. (This was the club during the day; 
in the evening the club and the game removed to 
the drug, book, and wall-paper store on the corner.) 
At supper, the new arrival and his probable pur¬ 
poses were discussed over every table in the town. 
Upon inquiry, he had informed Judd Bennett, the 
driver of the omnibus, that he had come to stay. 
Naturally, such a declaration caused a sensation, 
as people did not come to Plattville to hve, except 
through the inadvertency of being born there. In 
addition, the young man’s appearance and attire 
were reported to be extraordinary. Many of the 
curious, among them most of the marriageable 
females of the place, took occasion to pass and repass 
the sign of the “Carlow County Herald” during the 
evening. 

Meanwhile, the stranger was seated in the dingy 
office upstairs with his head bowed low on his arms. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 11 

Twilight stole through the dirty window-panes and 
faded into darkness. Night filled the room. He 
did not move. The young man from the East had 
bought the “Herald” from an agent; had bought 
it without ever having been within a hundred miles 
of Plattville. He had vastly overpaid for it. More¬ 
over, the price he had paid for it was all the money 
he had in the world. 

The next morning he went bitterly to work. He 
hired a compositor from Rouen, a young man 
named Parker, who set type all night long and 
helped him pursue advertisements all day. The 
citizens shook their heads pessimistically. They had 
about given up the idea that the “Herald” could 
ever amount to anything, and they betrayed an 
innocent, but caustic, doubt of ability in any 
stranger. 

One day the new editor left a note on his door, 
“Will return in fifteen minutes.” 

Mr. Rodney McCune, a politician from the neigh¬ 
boring county of Gaines, happening to be in Platt- 
ville on an errand to his henchmen, found the note, 
and wrote beneath the message the scathing 
inquiry, “Why.?^” 

When he discovered this addendum, the editor 


12 THE GENTLE]\IAN FROM INDIANA ' 

smiled for the first time since his advent, and 
reported the incident in his next issue, using the 
rubric, ‘‘Why Has the ‘Herald’ Returned to Life?” 
as a text for a rousing editorial on “honesty in 
politics,” a subject of which he already knew some¬ 
thing. The political district to which Carlow 
belonged was governed by a limited number of 
gentlemen whose wealth was ever on the increase; 
and “honesty in politics” was a startling concep¬ 
tion to the minds of the passive and resigned voters, 
who discussed the editorial on the street corners 
and in the stores. The next week there was another 
editorial, personal and local in its application, and 
thereby it became evident that the new proprietor 
of the “Herald” was a theorist who believed, in 
general, that a politician’s honor should not be 
merely of that middling healthy species known as 
“honor amongst politicians”; and, in particular, 
that Rodney McCune should not receive the nomi¬ 
nation of his party for Congress. Now, Mr. McCune 
was the undoubted dictator of the district, and his 
followers laughed at the stranger’s fantastic onset. 

But the editor was not content with the word of 
print; he hired a horse and rode about the country, 
and (to his own surprise) he proved to be an adaptable 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA IS 

young man who enjoyed exercise with a pitchfork to 
the farmer’s profit while the farmer talked. He 
talked little himself, but after listening an hour 
or so, he would drop a word from the saddle as he 
left; and then, by some surprising wizardry, the 
farmer, thinking over the interview, decided there 
was some sense in what that young fellow said, and 
grew curious to see what the young fellow had 
further to say in the “Herald.” 

Politics is the one subject that goes to the vitals 
of every rural American; and a Hoosier will talk 
politics after he is dead. 

Everybody read the campaign editorials, and 
found them interesting, although there was no one 
who did not perceive the utter absurdity of a young 
stranger’s dropping into Carlow and involving him¬ 
self in a party fight against the boss of the district. 
It was entirely a party fight; for, by grace of the last 
gerrymander, the nomination carried with it the 
certainty of election. A week before the conven¬ 
tion there came a provincial earthquake; the news 
passed from man to man in awe-struck whispers— 
McCune had withdrawn his name, making the 
hollowest of excuses to his cohorts. Nothing was 
known of the real reason for his disordered retreat. 


14 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


beyond the fact that he had been in Plattville on 
the morning before his withdrawal and had issued 
from a visit to the “Herald” office in a state of 
palsy. Mr. Parker, the Rouen printer, had been 
present at the close of the interview; but he held 
his peace at the command of his employer. He 
had been called into the sanctum, and had found 
McCune, white and shaking, leaning on the desk. 

“Parker,” said the editor, exhibiting a bundle of 
papers he held in his hand, “I want you to witness 
a verbal contract between Mr. McCune and myself. 
These papers are an affidavit and copies of some 
records of a street-car company which obtained a 
charter while Mr. McCune was in the State legisla¬ 
ture. They were sent to me by a man I do not 
know, an anonymous friend of Mr. McCune’s; in 
fact, a friend he seems to have lost. On considera¬ 
tion of our not printing these papers, Mr. McCune 
agrees to retire from politics for good. You under¬ 
stand, if he ever lifts his head again, politically, 
we publish them, and the courts will do the rest. 
Now, in case anything should happen to me-” 

“Something will happen to you, all right,” broke 
out McCune. “You can bank on that, you 
black-” 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 15 

“Come,” the editor interrupted, not unpleasantly, 
“why should there be anything personal in all 
this? I don’t recognize you as my private enemy 
—not at all; and I think you are getting off rather 
easily; aren’t you? You stay out of politics, and 
everything will be comfortable. You ought never 
to have been in it, you see. It’s a mistake not 
to keep square, because in the long run somebody 
is sure to give you away—like the fellow who sent 
me these. You promise to hold to a strictly private 
life?” 

“You’re a traitor to the party,” groaned the 
other, “but you only wait-” 

The editor smiled sadly. “Wait nothing. Don’t 
threaten, man. Go home to your wife. I’ll give 
you three to one she’ll be glad you are out of it.” 

“I’ll give you three to one,” said McCune, “that 
the White Caps will get you if you stay in Carlow. 
You want to look out for yourself, I tell you, my 
smart boy!” 

“Good-day, Mr. McCune,” was the answer. 
“Let me have your note of withdrawal before you 
leave town this afternoon.” The young man 
paused a moment, then extended his hand, as he 
said: “Shake hands, won’t you? I—I haven’t 


16 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


meant to be too hard on you. I hope things wiU 
seem easier and gayer to you before long; and if 
—if anything should turn up that I can do for you 
in a private way, I’ll be very glad, you know. 
Good-by.” 

The sound of the “Herald’s” victory went over 
the State. The paper came out regularly. The 
townsfolk bought it and the farmers drove in for it. 
Old subscribers came back. Old advertisers re¬ 
newed. The “Herald” began to sell in Amo, and 
Gaines County people subscribed. Carlow folk held 
up their heads when journalism was mentioned. 
Presently the “Herald” announced a news con¬ 
nection with Rouen, and with that, and the aid of 
“patent insides,” began an era of three issues a 
week, appearing on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and 
Saturdays. The Plattville Brass Band serenaded 
the editor. 

During the second month of the new regime of 
the “Herald,” the working force of the paper re¬ 
ceived an addition. One night the editor found 
some barroom loafers tormenting a patriarchal old 
man who had a magnificent head and a grand 
white beard. He had been thrown out of a saloon, 
and he was drunk with the drunkenness of three 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 17 


weeks steady pouring. He propped himself against 
a wall and reproved his tormentors in Latin. “I'm 
walking your way, Mr. Fisbee," remarked the 
journalist, hooking his arm into the old man’s. 
“Suppose we leave our friends here and go home.^” 
IMr. Fisbee was the one inhabitant of the town 
who had an unknown past; no one knew more about 
him than that he had been connected with a uni¬ 
versity somewhere, and had travelled in unheard-of 
countries before he came to Plattville. A glamour 
of romance was thrown about him by the gossips, 
to whom he ever proved a fund of delightful specula¬ 
tion. There was a dark, portentous secret in his 
life, it was agreed; an opinion not too well confirmed 
by the old man’s appearance. His fine eyes had 
a pathetic habit of wandering to the horizon in a 
questioning fashion that had a queer sort of hope¬ 
lessness in it, as if his quest were one for the Holy 
Grail, perhaps; and his expression was mild, vague, 
and sad. He had a look of race and blood; and 
yet, at the first glance, one saw that he was lost 
in dreams, and one guessed that the dreams would 
never be of great praticability in their application. 
Some such impression of Fisbee was probably what 
caused the editor of the “Herald” to nickname him 


18 THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 


(in his own mind) ‘‘The White Knight,” and to 
conceive a strong, if whimsical, fancy for him. 

Old Fisbee had come (from nobody knew where) 
to Plattville to teach, and had been principal of 
the High School for ten years, instructing his pupils 
after a peculiar fashion of his own, neglecting the 
ordinary courses of High School instruction to 
lecture on arch 80 ology to the dumfounded scholars; 
growing year by year more forgetful and absent, 
lost in his few books and his own reflections, until, 
though undeniably a scholar, he had been dis¬ 
charged for incompetency. He was old; he had 
no money and no way to make money; he could 
find nothing to do. The blow had seemed to daze 
him for a time; then he began to drop in at the 
hotel bar, where Wilkerson, the professional drunk¬ 
ard, favored him with his society. The old man 
understood; he knew it was the beginning of the 
end. He sold his books in order to continue his 
credit at the Palace bar, and once or twice, unable 
to proceed to his own dwelling, spent the night in 
a lumber yard, piloted thither by the hardier veteran, 
Wilkerson. 

The morning after the editor took him home, 
Fisbee appeared at the “Herald” oflSce in a new hat 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 19 

and a decent suit of black. He had received his 
salary in advance, his books had been repurchased, 
and he had become the reportorial staff of the 
“Carlow County Herald’’; also, he was to write 
various treatises for the paper. For the first few 
evenings, when he started home from the office, 
his chief walked with him, chatting heartily, until 
they had passed the Palace bar. But Fisbee’s 
redemption was complete. 

The old man had a daughter. When she came to 
Plattville, he told her what the editor of the 
“Herald” had done for him. 

The journalist kept steadily at his work; and, 
as time went on, the bitterness his predecessor’s 
swindle had left him passed away. But his lone¬ 
liness and a sense of defeat grew and deepened. 
When the vistas of the world had opened to his 
first youth, he had not thought to spend his life 
in such a place as Plattville; but he found himself 
doing it, and it was no great happiness to him that 
the congressional representative of the district, the 
gentleman whom the “Herald’s” opposition to Mc- 
Cune had sent to Washington, came to depend on 
his influence for renomination; nor did the realiza¬ 
tion that the editor of the “Carlow County Herald” 


20 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


had come to be McCune’s successor as political 
dictator produce a perceptibly enlivening effect on 
the young man. The years drifted very slowly, and 
to him it seemed they went by while he stood far 
aside and could not even see them move. He did 
not consider the life he led an exciting one; but 
the other citizens of Carlow did when he under¬ 
took a war against the ‘'White Caps.” The natives 
were much more afraid of the “White Caps” than 
he was; they knew more about them and under¬ 
stood them better than he did. 


CHAPTER II 


THE STRANGE LADY 

I T was June. From the patent inner columns 
of the “Carlow County Herald” might be 
gleaned the information (enlivened by cuts of 
duchesses) that the London «ieason had reached a 
high point of gaiety; and that, although the weather 
had grown inauspiciously warm, there was sufficient 
gossip for the thoughtful. To the rapt mind of 
Miss Selina Tibbs came a delicious moment of 
comparison: precisely the same c'onditions prevailed 
in Plattville. 

Not unduly might Miss Selina lay this flattering 
unction to her soul, and well might the “Herald” 
declare that “Carlow events were crowding thick 
and fast.” The congressional representative of the 
district was to deliver a lecture at the court-house; 
a circus was approaching the county-seat, and its 
glories would be exhibited “rain or shine”; the 
court had cleared up the docket by sitting to un¬ 
seemly hours of the night, even until ten o’clock 
21 


22 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


—one farmer witness had fallen asleep while depos¬ 
ing that he ‘‘had knowed this man Hender some 
eighteen year”—and, as excitements come indeed 
when they do come, and it seldom rains but it 
pours, the identical afternoon of the lecture a 
strange lady descended from the Rouen Accommo¬ 
dation and was greeted on the platform by the 
wealthiest citizen of the county. Judge Briscoe, and 
his daughter, Minnie, and (what stirred wonder to 
an itch almost beyond endurance) Mr. Fisbee! and 
they then drove through town on the way to the 
Briscoe mansion, all four, apparently, in a fluster 
of pleasure and exhilaration, the strange lady en¬ 
gaged in earnest conversation with Mr. Fisbee on 
the back seat. 

Judd Bennett had had the best stare at her, 
but, as he immediately fell into a dreamy and 
absent state, little satisfaction could be got from 
him, merely an exasperating statement that the 
stranger seemed to have a kind of new look to 
her. However, by means of Miss Mildy Upton, a 
domestic of the Briscoe household, the community 
was given something a little more definite. The 
lady’s name was Sherwood; she lived in Rouen; 
and she had known Miss Briscoe at the eastern 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 23 

school the latter had attended (to the feverish 
agitation of Plattville) three years before; but Mildy 
confessed her inadequacy in the matter of Mr. 
Fisbee. He had driven up in the buckboard with 
the others and evidently expected to stay for supper 
Mr. Tibbs, the postmaster (it was to the post- 
office that Miss Upton brought her information) 
suggested, as a possible explanation, that the lady 
was so learned that the Briscoes had invited Fisbee 
on the ground of his being the only person in Platt¬ 
ville they esteemed wise enough to converse with 
her; but Miss Tibbs wrecked her brother’s theory 
by mentioning the name of Fisbee’s chief. 

“You see, Solomon,” she sagaciously observed, 
“if that were true, they would have invited him, 
instead of Mr. Fisbee, and I wish they had. He 
isn’t troubled with malaria, and yet the longer he 
lives here the sallower-looking and sadder-looking 
he gets. I think the company of a lovely stranger 
might be of great cheer to his heart, and it will be 
interesting to witness the meeting between them. 
It may be,” added the poetess, “that they have 
already met, on his travels before he settled here. 
It may be that they are old friends—or even more.” 

“Then what,” returned her brother, “what is he 


g4 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


doin’ settin’ up in his office all afternoon with ink 
on his forehead, while Fisbee goes out ridin’ with 
her and stays for supper ^itevwerds?^’ 

Although the problem of Fisbee’s attendance re¬ 
mained a mere maze of hopeless speculation, Mildy 
had been present at the opening of Miss Sherwood’s 
trunk, and here was matter for the keen consider¬ 
ation of the ladies, at least. Thoughtful conversa¬ 
tions in regard to hats and linings took place across 
fences and on corners of the Square that afternoon; 
and many gentlemen wondered (in wise silence) 
why their spouses were absent-minded and brooded 
during the evening meal. 

At half-past seven, the Hon. Kedge Halloway of 
Amo delivered himself of his lecture: **The Past and 
Present. What we may Glean from Them, and 
Their Influence on the Future. At seven the court¬ 
room was crowded, and Miss Tibbs, seated on the 
platform (reserved for prominent citizens), viewed 
the expectant throng with rapture. It is possible 
that she would have confessed to witnessing a sea 
of faces, but it is more probable that she viewed 
the expectant throng. The thermometer stood at 
eighty-seven degrees and there was a rustle of in¬ 
cessantly moving palm-leaf fans as, row by row. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 25 


their yellow sides twinkled in the light of eight 
oil lamps. The stouter ladies wielded their fans 
with vigor. There were some very pretty faces 
in Mr. Halloway’s audience, but it is a peculiarity 
of Plattville that most of those females who do 
not incline to stoutness incline far in the opposite 
direction, and the lean ladies naturally suffered less 
from the temperature than their sisters. The shorn 
lamb is cared for, but often there seems the inten¬ 
tion to impart a moral in the refusal of Providence 
to temper warm weather to the full-bodied. 

Old Tom Martin expressed a strong conscious¬ 
ness of such intention when he observed to the 
shocked Miss Selina, as Mr. Bill Snoddy, the stout¬ 
est citizen of the county, waddled abnormally up 
the aisle: “The Almighty must be gittin’ a heap 
of fun out of BiU Snoddy to-night.** 

“Oh, Mr. Martin!*’ exclaimed Miss Tibbs, flut¬ 
tering at his irreverence. 

“Why, you would yourself. Miss Sehny,” re¬ 
turned old Tom. Mr. Martin always spoke in one 
key, never altering the pitch of his high, dry, unc¬ 
tuous drawl, though, when his purpose was more 
than ordinarily humorous, his voice assumed a 
shade of melancholy. Now and then he meditatively 


26 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


passed his fingers through his gray beard, which 
followed the line of his jaw, leaving his upper lip 
and most of his chin smooth-shaven. “Did you 
ever reason out why folks laugh so much at fat 
people?” he continued. “No, ma’am. Neither’d 
anybody else.” 

“Why is it, Mr. Martin?” asked Miss Selina. 

“It’s hke the Creator’s sayin’, ‘Let there be light.’ 
He says, ‘Let ladies be lovely—’ ” (Miss Tibbs 
bowed)—“and ‘Let men-foiks be honest—some¬ 
times;’ and, ‘Let fat people be held up to ridicule 
till they fall off.’ You can’t tell why it is; it was 
jest ordained that-a-way.” 

The room was so crowded that the juvenile por¬ 
tion of the assemblage was ensconced in the windows. 
Strange to say, the youth of Plattville were not 
present under protest, as their fellows of a metrop¬ 
olis would have been, lectures being well under¬ 
stood by the young of great cities to have instructive 
tendencies. The boys came to-night because they 
insisted upon coming. It was an event. Some of 
them had made sacrifices to come, enduring even 
the agony (next to hair-cutting in suffering) of 
having their ears washed. Conscious of parental 
eyes, they fronted the public with boyhood’s pro- 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 2T 


fessional expressionlessness, though they communi¬ 
cated with each other aside in a cipher-language of 
their own, and each group was a hot-bed of furtive 
gossip and sarcastic comment. Seated in the win¬ 
dows, they kept out what small breath of air might 
otherwise have stolen in to comfort the audience. 

Their elders sat patiently dripping with perspira¬ 
tion, most of the gentlemen undergoing the unusual 
garniture of stiffly-starched collars, those who had 
not cultivated chin beards to obviate such arduous 
necessities of pomp and state, hardly bearing up 
under the added anxiety of cravats. However, they 
sat outwardly meek under the yoke; nearly all of 
them seeking a quiet solace of tobacco—not that 
they smoked; Heaven and the gallantry of Carlow 
County forbid—nor were there anywhere visible 
tokens of the comforting ministrations of nicotine 
to violate the eye of etiquette. It is an art of 
Plattville. 

Suddenly there was a hum and a stir and a buzz 
of whispering in the room. Two gray old men and 
two pretty young women passed up the aisle to the 
platform. One old man was stalwart and ruddy, 
with a cordial eye and a handsome, smooth-shaven, 
big face. The other was bent and trembled slightly; 


28 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


his face was very white; he had a fine high brow, 
deeply lined, the brow of a scholar, and a grandly 
flowing white beard that covered his chest, the 
beard of a patriarch. One of the young women was 
tall and had the rosy cheeks and pleasant eyes of 
her father, who preceded her. The other was the 
strange lady. 

A universal perturbation followed her progress up 
the aisle, if she had known it. She was small and 
fair, very daintily and beautifully made; a pretty 
Marquise whose head Greuze, should have painted 
Mrs. Columbus Landis, wife of the proprietor of the 
Palace Hotel, conferring with a lady in the next 
seat, applied an over-burdened adjective: ‘Tt ain’t 
so much she’s han’some, though she is, that —but 
don’t you notice she’s got a kind of smart look to 
her? Her bein’ so teeny, kind of makes it more so, 
somehow, too.” What stunned the gossips of the 
windows to awed admiration, however, was the 
unconcerned and stoical fashion in which she wore 
a long bodkin straight through her head. It seemed 
a large sacrifice merely to make sure one’s hat 
remained in place. 

The party took seats a little to the left and rear 
of the lecturer’s table, and faced the audience. The 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 29 


strange lady chatted gaily with the other three, 
apparently as unconscious of the multitude of eyes 
fixed upon her as the gazers were innocent of rude 
intent. There were pretty young women in Platt- 
ville; Minnie Briscoe was the prettiest, and, as the 
local glass of fashion reflected, “the stylishest”; but 
this girl was different, somehow, in a way the 
critics were puzzled to discover—different, from 
the sparkle of her eyes and the crown of her trim 
sailor hat, to the edge of her snowy duck skirt. 

Judd Bennett sighed a sigh that was heard in 
every corner of the room. As everybody imme¬ 
diately tiu-ned to look at him, he got up and went 
out. 

It had long been a jocose fiction of Mr. Martin, 
who was a widower of thirty years’ standing, that 
he and the gifted authoress by his side were in a 
state of courtship. Now he bent his rugged head 
toward her to whisper: ‘T never thought to see thb 
day you’d have a rival in my affections. Miss Seliny, 
but yonder looks like it. I reckon I’ll have to go 
up to Ben Tinkle’s and buy that fancy vest he’s 
had in stock this last twelve year or more. Will 
you take me back when she’s left the city again. 
Miss Seliny?” he drawled. “I expect, maybe. Miss 


30 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


Sherwood is one of these here summer girls. I’ve 
heard of ’em but I never see one before. You 
better take warning and watch me—Fisbee won’t 
have no clear field from now on.” 

The stranger leaned across to speak to Miss 
Briscoe and her sleeve touched the left shoulder of 
the old man with the patriarchal white beard. A 
moment later he put his right hand to that shoulder 
and gently moved it up and down with a caressing 
motion over the shabby black broadcloth her gar¬ 
ment had touched. 

'Took at that old Fisbee!” exclaimed Mr. Martin, 
affecting indignation. ‘‘Never be ’n half as spruced 
up and wide awake in all his life. He’s prob’ly 
got her to listen to him on the decorations of 
Nineveh—it’s my belief he was there when it was 
destroyed. Well, if I can’t cut him out we’ll get our 
respected young friend of the ‘Herald’ to do it.” 

“Sh!” returned Miss Tibbs. “Here he is.” 

The seats upon the platform were all occupied, 
except the two foremost ones in the centre (one on 
each side of a little table with a lamp, a pitcher of 
ice-water, and a glass) reserved for the lecturer and 
the gentleman who was to introduce him. Steps 
were audible in the haU, and every one turned to 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 31 

watch the door, where the distinguished pair now 
made their appearance in a hush of expectation over 
which the beating of the fans alone prevailed. The 
Hon. Kedge Hallo way was one of the gleaners of 
the flesh-pots, himseK, and he marched into the 
room unostentatiously mopping his shining expanse 
of brow with a figured handkerchief. He was a 
person of solemn appearance; a fat gold watch- 
chain which curved across his ponderous front, add¬ 
ing mysteriously to his gravity. At his side strolled 
a very tall, thin, rather stooping—though broad- 
shouldered—rather shabby young man with a sal¬ 
low, melancholy face and deep-set eyes that looked 
tired. When they were seated, the orator looked 
ever his audience slowly and with an incomparable 
calm; then, as is always done, he and the melan¬ 
choly young man exchanged whispers for a few 
moments. After this there was a pause, at the end 
of which the latter rose and announced that it was 
his pleasure and his privilege to introduce, that 
evening, a gentleman who needed no introduction to 
that assemblage. What citizen of Carlow needed an 
introduction, asked the speaker, to the orator they 
had applauded in the campaigns of the last twenty 
years, the statesman author of the Halloway Bill, 


32 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

the most honored citizen of the neighboring and 
flourishing county and city of Amo? And, the 
speaker would say, that if there were one thing the 
citizens of Carlow could be held to envy the citizens 
of Amo, it was the Honorable Hedge Hallo way, the 
thinker, to whose widely-known paper they were 
about to have the pleasure and improvement of 
listening. 

The introduction was so vehemently applauded 
that, had there been present a person connected 
with the theatrical profession, he might have been 
nervous for fear the introducer had prepared no 
encore, “Hedge is too smart to take it all to him¬ 
self,” commented Mr. Martin. “He knows it’s half 
account of the man that said it.” 

He was not mistaken. Mr. Halloway had learned 
a certain perceptiveness on the stump. Resting one 
hand upon his unfolded notes upon the table, he 
turned toward the melancholy young man (who had 
subsided into the small of his back in his chair) and, 
after clearing his throat, observed with sudden ve¬ 
hemence that he must thank his gifted friend for 
his flattering remarks, but that when he said that 
Carlow envied Amo a Halloway, it must be replied 
that Amo grudged no glory to her sister county of 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 33 

Caxlow, but, if Amo could find envy in her heart it 
would be because Carlow possessed a paper so 
sterling, so upright, so brilliant, so enterprising as 
the “Carlow County Herald,” and a journalist so 
talented, so gifted, so energetic, so fearless, as its 
editor. 

The gentleman referred to showed very faint ap¬ 
preciation of these ringing compliments. There was 
% lamp on the table beside him, against which, to 
the view of Miss Sherwood of Rouen, his face was 
silhouetted, and very rarely had it been her lot to 
see a man look less enthusiastic under public and 
favorable comment of himself. She wondered if he, 
also, remembered the Muggleton cricket match and 
the subsequent dinner oratory. 

The lecture proceeded. The orator winged away 
to scary heights with gestures so vigorous as to 
cause admiration for his pluck in making use of them 
on such a night; the perspiration streamed down 
his face, his neck grew purple, and he dared the 
very face of apoplexy, binding his auditors with a 
double spell. It is true that long before the perora¬ 
tion the windows were empty and the boys were eat¬ 
ing stolen, unripe fruit in the orchards of the listeiers. 
The thieves were sure of an alibi. 


34 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 
The Hon. Mr. Hallo way reached a logical con¬ 
clusion which convinced even the combative and un¬ 
willing that the present depends largely upon the 
past, while the future will be determined, for the 
most part, by the conditions of the present. “The 
future,” he cried, leaning forward with an expression 
of solenm warning, “The future is in our own hands, 
ladies and gentlemen of the city of Plattville. Is 
it not so? We will find it so. Turn it over in your 
minds.” He leaned backward and folded his hands 
benevolently on his stomach and said in a searching 
whisper: “Ponder it.” He waited for them to pon¬ 
der it, and little Mr. Swanter, the druggist and book¬ 
seller, who prided himself on his politeness and who 
was seated directly in front, scratched his head and 
knit his brows to show that he was pondering it. 
The stillness was intense; the fans ceased to beat; 
Mr. Snoddy could be heard breathing dangerously. 
Mr. Swanter was considering the advisability of 
drawing a pencil from his pocket and figuring on 
it upon his cuff, when suddenly, with the energy 
of a whirlwind, the lecturer threw out his arms to 
their fullest extent and roared: “It is a fact! It is 
carven on stone in the gloomy caverns of time. It 
is writ in fire on the imperishable walls of Fate!” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 35 


After the outburst, his voice sank with startling 
rapidity to a tone of honeyed confidence, and he 
wagged an inviting forefinger at Mr. Snoddy, who 
opened his mouth. “Shall we take an example.^ Not 
from the marvellous, my friends; let us seek an 
illustration from the ordinary. Is that not better? 
One familiar to the humblest of us. One we can all 
comprehend. One from our every-day life. One 
which will interest even the young. Yes. The 
common house-fly. On a window-sill we place a bit 
of fly-paper, and contiguous to it, a flower upon 
which the happy insect flkes to feed and rest. The 
little fly approaches. See, he hovers between the 
two. One is a fatal trap, an ambuscade, and the 
other a safe harbor and an innocuous haven. But 
mystery allures him. He poises, undecided. That 
ts the present. That, my friends, is the Present! 
What will he do? What will he do? What will he 
DO? Memories of the past are whispering to him: 
‘Choose the flower. Light on the posy.’ Here we 
clearly see the influence of the past upon the present. 
But, to employ a figure of speech, the fly-paper 
beckons to the insect toothsomely, and, thinks he: 
‘Shall I give it a try? Shall I? Shall I give it a 
try?’ The future is m his own hands to make or 


36 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


unmake. The past, the voice of Providtnce, has 
counselled him; ‘Leave it alone, leave it alone, little 
fly. Go away from there.’ Does he heed the warn¬ 
ing? Does he heed it, ladies and gentlemen? Does 
he? Ah, no! He springs into the air, decides be¬ 
tween the two attractions, one of them, so deadly 
to his interests and —droys upon the fly-paper to 
perish miserably! The future is in his hands no 
longer. We must lie upon the bed that we have 
made, nor can Providence change its unalterable 
decrees.” 

After the tragedy, the orator took a swallow of 
water, mopped his brow with the figured handker¬ 
chief and announced that a new point herewith 
presented itself for consideration. The audience 
sank back with a gasp of release from the strain of 
attention. Minnie Briscoe, leaning back, breathless 
like the others, became conscious that a tremor 
agitated her visitor. Miss Sherwood had bent her 
head behind the shelter of the judge’s broad shoul¬ 
ders; was shaking slightly and had covered her face 
with her hands. 

“What is it, Helen?” whispered Miss Briscoe, 
anxiously. “What is it? Is something the matter?” 

“Nothing. Nothing, dear,” She dropped her 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 37 


hands from her face. Her cheeks were deep crim¬ 
son, and she bit her lip with determination. 

“Oh, but there is! Why, you’ve tears in your 
eyes. Are you faint? What is it?” 

“It is only—only-” Miss Sherwood choked, 

then cast a swift glance at the profile of the melan¬ 
choly yoimg man. The perfectly dismal decorum of 
this gentleman seemed to inspire her to maintain her 
own gravity. “It is only that it seemed such a pity 
about that fly,” she explained. From where they 
sat the journalistic silhouette was plainly visible, 
and both Fisbee and ^Miss Sherwood looked toward 
it often, the former with the wistful, apologetic fidel¬ 
ity one sees in the eyes of an old setter watching his 
master. 

When the lecture was over many of the audience 
pressed forward to shake the Hon. Mr. Halloway’s 
hand. Tom Martin hooked his arm in that of the 
sallow gentleman and passed out with him. 

“Mighty humanizin’ view Kedge took of that there 
insect,” remarked Mr. Martin. “I don’t recollect I 
ever heard of no mournfuller error than that’n. I 
noticed you spoke of Hallo way as a ‘thinker,’ with¬ 
out mentioning what kind. I didn’t know, before, 
that you were as cautious a man as that.” 


38 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“Does your satire find nothing sacred, Martin?’^ 
returned the other, “not even the Honorable Kedge 
Halloway?” 

“I wouldn’t presume,” replied old Tom, “to 
make light of the catastrophe that overtook the 
heedless fly. When Halloway went on to other 
subjects I was so busy picturin’ the last moments 
of that closin’ life, stuck there in the fly-paper, I 
couldn’t listen to him. But there’s no use dwellin’ 
on a sorrow we can’t help. Look at the moon; it’s 
full enough to cheer us up.” They had emerged 
from the court-house and paused on the street as 
the stream of townsfolk divided and passed by 
them to take different routes leading from the 
Square. Not far away, some people were getting 
into a buckboard. Fisbee and Miss Sherwood were 
already on the rear seat. 

“Who’s with him, to-night, Mr. Fisbee?” asked 
Judge Briscoe in a low voice. 

“No one. He is going directly to the office. 
To-morrow is Thursday, one of our days of publica¬ 
tion.” 

“Oh, then it’s all right. Climb in, Minnie, we’re 
waiting for you.” The judge offered his hand to 
his daughter. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 39 

‘Tn a moment, father,’’ she answered. “I’m 
going to ask him to call,” she said to the other 
girl. 

“But won’t he-” 

Miss Briscoe laughed. “He never comes to see 
me!” She walked over to where Martin and the 
young man were looking up at the moon, and 
addressed the journalist. 

“I’ve been trying to get a chance to speak to you, 
for a week,” she said, offering him her hand; “I 
wanted to tell you I had a friend coming to visit me. 
Won’t you come to see us? She’s here.” 

The young man bowed. “Thank you,” he 
answered. “Thank you, very much. I shall be 
very glad.” His tone had the meaningless quality 
of perfunctory courtesy; Miss Briscoe detected only 
the courtesy; but the strange lady marked the lack 
of intention in his words. 

“Don’t you include me, Minnie?” inquired Mr. 
Martin, plaintively. “I’ll try not to be too fas¬ 
cinatin’, so as to give our young friend a show. It 
was love at first sight with me. I give Miss Seliny 
warning soon as your folks come in and I got a 
good look at the lady.” 

As the buckboard drove away. Miss Sherwood, 



40 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

who had been gazing steadfastly at the two figures 
still standing in the street, the tall ungainly old one, 
and the taller, loosely-held young one (he had not 
turned to look at her) withdrew her eyes from them, 
bent them seriously upon Fisbee, and asked: “What 
did you mean when you said no one was with him 
to-night?’’ 

“That no one was watching him,” he answered. 

“Watching him? I don’t understand.” 

“Yes; he has been shot at from the woods at night 
and-” 

The girl shivered. “But who watches him?” 

“The young men of the town. He has a habit 
of taking long walks after dark, and he is heedless 
of all remonstrance. He laughs at the idea of cur¬ 
tailing the limit of his strolls or keeping within the 
town when night has fallen; so the young men have 
organized a guard for him, and every evening one of 
them follows him until he goes to the office to work 
for the night. It is a different young man every 
evening, and the watcher follows at a distance so 
that he does not suspect.” 

“But how many people know of this arrange¬ 
ment?” 

“Nearly every one in the county except the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 41 


Cross-Roads people, though it is not improbable 
that they have discovered it.” 

“And has no one told him” 

“No; it would annoy him; he would not allow 
it to continue. He will not even arm himself.” 

“They follow and watch him night after night, and 
every one knows and no one tells him.^ Oh, I must 
say,” cried the girl, “I think these are good people.” 

The stalwart old man on the front seat shook out 
the reins and whined the whip over his roans’ backs. 
“They are the people of your State and mine, Miss 
Sherwood,” he said in his hearty voice, “the best 
people in God’s world—and I’m not running for 
Congress, either!” 

“But how about the Six-Cross-Roads people, 
father.^” asked Minnie. 

“We’ll wipe them clean out some day,” answered 
her father—“possibly judicially, possibly-” 

“Surely judiciously?” suggested Miss Sherwood. 

“If you care to see what a bad settlement looks 
like, we’ll drive through there to-morrow—^by day¬ 
light,” said Briscoe. “Even the doctor doesn’t 
insist on being in that neighborhood after dark. 
They are trying their best to get Harkless, and if 
they do-” 



42 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


‘Tf they do!” repeated Miss Sherwood. She 
clasped Fisbee’s hand gently. His eyes shone and 
he touched her fingers with a strange, shy reverence. 

“You will meet him to-morrow,” he said. 

She laughed and pressed his hand. “I’m afraid 
not. He wasn’t even interested enough to look at 
me.” 


CHAPTER HI 


LONESOMENESS 


W 


’HEN the rusty hands of the oflSce clock 
marked half-past four, the editor-in-chief 
of the ‘‘Carlow County Herald” took his 


hand out of his hair, wiped his pen on his last notice 
from the Whate-Caps, put on his coat, swept out the 
close little entry, and left the sanctum for the bright 
June afternoon. 

He chose the way to the west, strolling thought¬ 
fully out of town by the white, hot, deserted Main 
Street, and thence onward by the country road into 
which its proud half-mile of old brick store build¬ 
ings, tumbled-'lown frame shops and thinly painted 
cottages degenerated. The sun was in his face, 
where the road ran between the summer fields, lying 
waveless, low, gracious in promise; but, coming to 
a wood of hickory and beech and walnut that stood 
beyond, he might turn his down-bent-hat-brim up 
and hold his head erect. Here the shade fell deep 
and cool on the green tangle of rag and iron weed 


43 


44 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


and long grass in the corners of the snake fence, 
although the sun beat upon the road so close beside. 
There was no movement in the crisp young leaves 
overhead; high in the boughs there was a quick 
flirt of crimson where two robins hopped noiselessly. 
No insect raised resentment of the lonesomeness: 
the late afternoon, when the air is quite still, had 
come; yet there rested—somewhere—on the quiet 
day, a faint, pleasant, woody smell. It came to the 
editor of the “Herald” as he climbed to the top rail 
of the fence for a seat, and he drew a long, deep 
breath to get the elusive odor more luxuriously— 
and then it was gone altogether. 

“A habit of delicacies,” he said aloud, addressing 
tie wide silence complainingly. He drew a faded 
tobacco-bag and a brier pipe from his coat pocket 
and filled and lit the pipe. “One taste—and they 
quit,” he finished, gazing solemnly upon the shining 
little town down the road. He twirled the pouch 
mechanically about his finger, and then, suddenly 
regarding it, patted it caressingly. It had been a 
giddy little bag, long ago, satin, and gay with 
embroidery in the colors of the editor’s university; 
and although now it was frayed to the verge of 
tatters, it still bore an air of pristine jauntiness, an 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 45 


air of which its owner in no wise partook. He looked 
from it over the fields toward the town in the clear 
distance and sighed softly as he put the pouch back 
in his pocket, and, resting his arm on his knee and 
his chin in his hand, sat blowing clouds of smoke out 
of the shade into the simshine, absently watching the 
ghostly shadows dance on the white dust of the 
road. 

A little garter snake crept under the fence beneath 
him and disappeared in the underbrush; a rabbit 
progressing timidly on his travels by a series of bril¬ 
liant dashes and terror-smitten halts, came within 
a few yards of him, sat up with quivering nose and 
eyes alight with fearful imaginings—vanished, a 
flash of fluffy brown and white. Shadows grew 
longer; the brier pipe sputtered feebly in depletion 
and was refilled. A cricket chirped and heard 
answer; there was a woodland stir of breezes; and 
the pair of robins left the branches overhead in eager 
flight, vacating before the arrival of a great flock of 
blackbirds hastening thither ere the eventide should 
be upon them. The blackbirds came, chattered, 
gossip>ed, quarrelled, and beat each other with their 
wings above the smoker sitting on the top fence rail. 

But he had remembered—it was Commencement. 


46 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


To-day, a thousand miles to the east, a company of 
grave young gentlemen sat in semi-circular rows be¬ 
fore a central altar, while above them rose many 
tiers of mothers and sisters and sweethearts, listen¬ 
ing to the final word. He could see it all very clearly: 
the lines of freshly shaven, boyish faces, the dainty 
gowns, the flowers and bright eyes above, and the 
fight that filtered in through stained glass to fall 
softly over them all, with, here and there, a vivid 
splash of color. Gothic shaped. He could see the 
throngs of white-clad loungers under the elms with¬ 
out, under-classmen, bored by the Latin addresses 
and escaped to the sward and breeze of the campus; 
there were the troops of roistering graduates trot¬ 
ting about arm in arm, and singing; he heard the 
mandolins on the little balconies play an old refrain 
and the university cheering afterward; saw the old 
professor he had cared for most of all, with the thin 
white hair straggling over his silken hood, following 
the band in the sparse ranks of his class. And he 
saw his own Commencement Day—and the station 
at the junction where he stood the morning after, 
looking across the valley at the old towers for the 
last time; saw the broken groups of his class, stand¬ 
ing upon the platform on the other side of the tracks, 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 47 

waiting for the south-bound train as he and others 
waited for the north-bound—and they all sang 
‘‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot;” and, while 
they looked across at each other, singing, the shin¬ 
ing rails between them wavered and blurred as the 
engine rushed in and separated them and their hves 
thenceforth. He filled his pipe again and spoke to 
the phantoms gliding over the dust—“Seven years!” 
He was occupied with the realization that there had 
been a man in his class whose ambition needed no 
restraint, his promise was so complete—in the stromg 
belief of the university, a belief he could not help 
knowing—and that seven years to a day from his 
Commencement this man was sitting on a fence rail 
in Indiana. 

Down the road a buggy came creaking toward 
him, gray with dust, the top canted permanently to 
one side, old and frayed, like the fat, shaggy, gray 
mare that drew it; her unchecked, despondent head 
lowering before her, while her incongruous tail 
waved incessantly, like the banner of a storming 
party. The editor did not hear the flop of the 
mare’s feet nor the sound of the wheels, so deep was 
his reverie, till the vehicle was nearly opposite him. 
The red-faced and perspiring driver drew rein, and 


48 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

the journalist looked up and waved a long white 
hand to him in greeting. 

“Howdy’ do, Mr. Harkless?” called the man in 
the buggy. “Soakin’ in the weather.^^” He spoke 
in shouts, though neither was hard of hearing. 

“Yes; just soaking,” answered Harkless; “it’s 
such a gypsy day. How is Mr. Bowlder?” 

“I’m givin’ good satisfaction, [^thankye, and all 
at home. She^s in town; goin’ in after her now.” 

“Give Mrs. Bowlder my regards,” said the jour¬ 
nalist, comprehending the symbolism. “How is 
Hartley?” 

The farmer’s honest face shaded over, a second. 
“He’s be’n steady ever sence the night you brought 
him out home; six weeks straight. I’m kind of 
bothered about to-morrow—It’s show-day and he 
wants to come in town with us, and seems if I hadn’t 
any call to say no. I reckon he’ll have to take his 
chances—and us, too.” He raised the reins and 
clucked to the gray mare; “Well, she’ll be mad I 
ain’t there long ago. Ride in with me? ” 

“No, I thank you. I’ll walk in for the sake of my 
appetite.” 

“Wouldn’t encourage it too much—‘livin’ at the 
Palace Hotel,’ ” observed Bowlder. “Sorry ye won’t 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 49 

ride.” He gathered the loose ends of the reins 
in his hands, leaned far over the dashboard and 
struck the mare a hearty thwack; the tattered 
banner of tail jerked indignantly, but she consented 
to move down the road. Bowlder thrust his big 
head through the sun-curtain behind him and con¬ 
tinued the conversation: “See the White-Caps 
ain’t got ye yet.” 

“No, not yet.” Harkless laughed. 

“Reckon the boys ’druther ye stayed in town 
after dark,” the other called back; then, as the mare 
stumbled into a trot, “Well, come out and see us— 
if ye kin spare time from the jedge’s.” The latter 
clause seemed to be an afterthought intended with 
humor, for Bowlder accompanied it with the loud 
laughter of sylvan timidity, risking a joke. Hark¬ 
less nodded without the least apprehension of his 
meaning, and waved farewell as Bowlder finally 
turned his attention to the mare. When the flop, 
flop of her hoofs had died out, the journalist realized 
that the day was silent no longer; it was verging into 
evening. 

He dropped from the fence and turned his face 
toward town and supper. He felt the light and life 
about him; heard the clatter of the blackbirds above 


50 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


him; heard the homing bees hum by, and saw the 
vista of white road and level landscape, framed on 
two sides by the branches of the grove, a vista of 
infinitely stretching fields of green, lined here and 
there with woodlands and flat to the horizon line, 
the village lying in their lap. No roll of meadow, 
no rise of pasture land, relieved their serenity nor 
shouldered up from them to be called a hill. A 
second great flock of blackbirds was settling down 
over the Plattville maples. As they hung in the fair 
dome of the sky below the few white clouds, it oc¬ 
curred to Harkless that some supping god had in¬ 
advertently peppered his custard, and now inverted 
and emptied his gigantic blue dish upon the earth, 
the innumerable little black dots seeming to poise 
for a moment, then floating slowly down from the 
heights. 

A farm-bell rang in the distance, a tinkling com¬ 
ing small and mellow from far away, and at the lone¬ 
someness of that sound he heaved a long, mournful 
sigh. The next instant he broke into laughter, for 
another bell rang over the fields, the court-house 
bell in the Square. The first four strokes were given 
with mechanical regularity, the pride of the custo-* 
dian who operated the bell being to produce the effect 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 51 

of a clock-work bell such as he had once heard in 
the court-house at Rouen; but the fifth and sixth 
strokes were halting achievements, as, after four 
o’clock, he often lost count on the strain of the effort 
for precise imitation. There was a pause after the 
sixth, then a dubious and reluctant stroke—seven— 
a longer pause, followed by a final ring with des¬ 
perate decision—eight! Harkless looked at his 
watch; it was twenty minutes of six. 

As he crossed the court-house yard to the Palace 
Hotel, he stopped to exchange a word with the bell¬ 
ringer, who, seated on the steps, was mopping his 
brow with an air of hard-earned satisfaction. 

“Good-evening, Schofields’,” he said. “You came 
in strong on the last stroke, to-night.” 

“What we need here,” responded the bell-ringer, 
“is more public-spirited men. I ain’t kickin’ on 
you, Mr. Harkless, no sir; but we want more men 
like they got in Rouen; we want men that’ll git 
Main Street paved with block or asphalt; men that’ll 
put in factories, men that’ll act and not set round like 
that ole fool Martin and laugh and polly-woggle and 
make fun of public sperrit, day in and out. I reckon 
I do my best for the city.” 

“Oh, nobody minds Tom Martin,” answered 


52 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

Harkless. “It’s only half the time he means any^ 
thing by what he says.” 

“That’s jest what I hate about him,” returned the 
bell-ringer in a tone of high complaint; “you can’t 
never tell which half it is. Look at him now!” 
Over in front of the hotel Martin was standing, 
talking to the row of coatless loungers who sat with 
their chairs tilted back against the props of the 
wooden awning that projected over the sidewalk. 
Their faces were turned toward the court-house, and 
even those lost in meditative whittling had looked 
up to laugh. Martin, his hands in the pockets of his 
alpaca coat, his rusty silk hat tilted forward till the 
wide brim rested almost on the bridge of his nose, 
was addressing them in his one-keyed voice, the 
melancholy whine of which, though not the words, 
penetrated to the court-house steps. 

The bell-ringer, whose name was Henry Scho¬ 
field, but who was known as Schofield’s Henry 
(popularly abbreviated to Schofields’) was moved 
to indignation. “Look at him,” he cried. “Look at 
him! Everlastingly goin’ on about my bell! Let 
him talk, jest let him talk.” The supper gong 
boomed inside the hotel and Harkless bade the bell¬ 
ringer good-night. As he moved away the latter 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 53 


called after him: “He don’t disturb nobody. Let 
him talk. Who pays any ’tention to him I’d hke 
to know?” There was a burst of laughter from the 
whittlers. Schofields’ sat in patient silence for a full 
minute, as one who knew that no official is too lofty 
to escape the anathemas of envy. Then he sprang 
to his feet and shook his fist at Martin, who was 
disappearing within the door of the hotel. “Go 
to Halifax!” he shouted. 

The dining-room of the Palace Hotel was a large, 
airy apartment, rustling with artistically perforated 
and slashed pink paper that hung everywhere, at 
this season of the year, to lend festal effect as well 
as to palliate the scourge of flies. There were six or 
seven large tables, all vacant except that at which 
Columbus Landis, the landlord, sat with his guests, 
while his wife and children ate in the kitchen by 
their own preference. Transient trade was light in 
Plattville; nobody ever came there, except occasional 
commercial travellers who got out of town the 
instant it was possible, and who said awfful things 
if, by the exigencies of the railway time-table, they 
were left over night. 

Behind the host’s chair stood a red-haired girl in 
a blue cotton gown; and in her hand she languidly 


54 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


waved a long instrument made of clustered strips of 
green and white and yellow tissue paper fastened to 
a wooden wand; with this she amiably amused the 
flies except at such times as the conversation proved 
too interesting, when she was apt to rest it on the 
shoulder of one of the guests. This happened each 
time the editor of the “Herald’’ joined in the talk. 
As the men seated themselves they all nodded te 
her and said, “G’d evening, Cynthy.” Harkless 
always called her Charmion; no one knew why. 
When he came in she moved around the table to 
a chair directly opposite him, and held that station 
throughout the meal, with her eyes fixed on his face. 
Mr. Martin noted this manoeuvre—it occurred 
regularly twice a day—with a stealthy smile at the 
girl, and her light skin flushed while her lip curled 
shrewishly at the old gentleman. “Oh, all right, 
Cynthy,” he whispered to her, and chuckled aloud 
at her angry toss of the head. 

“Schofields’ seemed to be kind of put out with me 
this evening,” he remarked, addressing himself to 
the company. “He’s the most ungratefullest cuss 
I ever come up with. I was only oratin’ on how 
proud the city ought to be of him. He fairly keeps 
Plattville’s sportin’ spirit on the gog; ’die ouL wasn’t 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 55 


for kim. There’s be’n more money laid on him 
whether he’ll strike over and above the hour, or 
under and below, or whether he’ll strike fifteen min¬ 
utes before time, or twenty after, than—well, sir, 
we’d all forgit the language if it wasn’t for Scho¬ 
fields’ bell to keep us talkin’; that’s my claim. Dull 
days, think of the talk he furnishes all over town. 
Think what he’s done to promote conversation. 
Now, for instance, Anna Belle Bardlock’s got a 
beau, they say”—here old Tom tilted back in his 
chair and turned an innocent eye upon a youth 
across the table, young William Todd, who was 
blushing over his griddle-cakes—‘‘and I hear he’s 
a good deal scared of Anna Belle and not just what 
you might call brash with her. They say every 
Sunday night he’ll go up to Bardlocks’ and call on 
Anna Belle from half-past six till nine, and when 
he’s got into his chair he sets and looks at the floor 
and the crayon portraits till about seven; then he 
opens his tremblin’ lips and says, ‘Reckon Scho¬ 
fields’ must be on his way to the court-house by this 
time.’ And about an hour later, when Schofields’ 
hits four or five, he’ll speak up again, ‘Say, I reckon 
he means eight.’ ’Long towards nine o’clock, they 
say he skews around in his chair and says, ‘Wond«r 


56 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

if he’ll strike before time or after,’ and Anna Belle 
answers out loud, T hoj>e after,’ for politeness; but 
in her soul she says, T pray before’; and then Scho¬ 
fields’ hits her up for eighteen or twenty, and Anna 
Belle’s company reaches for his hat. Three Sun¬ 
days ago he turned around before he went out and 
said, ‘Do you like apple-butter?’ but never waited 
to find out. It’s the same programme every Sun¬ 
day evening, and Jim Bardlock says Anna Belle’s 
so worn out you wouldn’t hardly know her for the 
blithe creature she was last year—the excitement’s 
be’n too much for her!” 

Poor William Todd bent his fiery face over the 
table and suffered the general snicker in helpless 
silence. Then there was quiet for a space, broken 
only by the click of knives against the heavy china 
and the indolent rustle of Cynthia’s fly-brush. 

“Town so still,” observed the landlord, finally, 
with a complacent glance at the dessert course of 
prunes to which his guests were helping themselves 
from a central reservoir, “Town so still, hardly 
seems like show-day’s come round again. Yet 
there’s be’n some shore signs lately: when my 
shavers come honeyin’ up with, ‘Say, pa, ain’t they 
no urrands I can go for ye, pa? I like to run ’em 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 57 

for you, pa,’—’relse, ‘Oh, pa, ain’t they no water 
I can haul, or nothin’, pa?’—’relse, as little Rosina 
T. says, this morning, ‘Pa, I always pray fer you, 
pa,’ and pa this and pa that—you can rely either 
Christmas or show-day’s mighty close.” 

Wilham Todd, taking occasion to prove himself 
recovered from confusion, remarked casually that 
there was another token of the near approach of the 
circus, as ole Wilkerson was drunk again. 

“There’s a man!” exclaimed Mr. Mhrtin with 
enthusiasm. “There’s the feller for my money! 
He does his duty as a citizen more discriminatin’ly 
on public occasions than any man I ever see. 
There’s Wilkerson’s celebration when there’s a 
funeral; look at the difference between it and on 
Fourth of July. Why, sir, it’s as melancholy as a 
hearse-plume, and sympathy ain’t the word for it 
when he looks at the remains, no sir; preacher nor 
undertaker, either, ain’t half as blue and respectful. 
Then take his circus spree. He come into the store 
this afternoon, head up, marchin’ like a grenadier 
and shootin* his hand out before his face and drawin* 
it back again, and hollering out, ‘Ta, ta, ta-ra-ta, ta, 
ta-ta-ra’—why, the dumbest man ever lived could 
see in a minute show’s ’cornin’ to-morrow and Wil- 


58 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


kerson’s playin’ the trombone. Then he’d snort 
and goggle like an elephant. Got the biggest sense 
of appropriateness of any man in the county, Wil- 
kerson has. Folks don’t half appreciate him.” 

As each boarder finished his meal he raided the 
glass of wooden toothpicks and went away with no 
standing on the , order of his going; but Martin 
waited for Harkless, who, not having attended to 
business so concisely as the others, was the last to 
leave the table, and they stood for a moment under 
the awning outside, lighting their cigars. 

“Call on the judge, to-night.^” asked Martin. 

“No,” said Harkless. “Why.^"” 

“Didn’t you see the lady with Minnie and the 
judge at the lecture?” 

“I caught a glimpse of her. That’s what Bowlder 
meant, then.” 

“I don’t know what Bowlder meant, but I guess 
you better go out there, young man. She might 
not stay here long.” 


CHAPTER IV 


THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER 

HE Briscoe buckboard rattled along the 



elastic country-road, the roans setting a 


sharp pace as they turned eastward on the 
pike toward home and supper. 

“They’ll make the eight miles in three-quarters 
of an hour,” said the judge, proudly. He pointed 
ahead with his whip. “Just beyond that bend we 
pass through Six-Cross-Roads.” 

Miss Sherwood leaned forward eagerly. “Can we 
see ‘Mr. Wimby’s’ house from here?” 

“No, it’s on the other side, nearer town; we pass 
it later. It’s the only respectable-looking house in 
this township.” They reached the turn of the road, 
and the judge touched up his colts to a sharper gait. 
“No need of dallying,” he observed quietly. “It 
always makes me a little sick just to see the place. 
I’d hate to have a break-down here.” 

They came in sight of a squalid settlement, built 
raggedly about a blacksmith’s shop and a saloon. 


60 THE GENTLEIViAN FROM INDIANA 


Half-a-dozen shanties clustered near the forge, a few 
roofs scattered through the shiftlessly cultivated 
fields, four or five barns propped by fence-rails, some 
sheds with gaping apertures through which the 
light glanced from side to side, a squad of thin, 
“razor-back” hogs—now and then worried by gaunt 
hounds—^and some abused-looking hens, groping 
about disconsolately in the mire, a broken-topped 
buggy with a twisted wheel settling into the mud 
of the middle of the road (there was always abundant 
mud, here, in the dryest summer), a lowering face 
sneering from a broken window—Six-Cross-Roads 
was forbidding and forlorn enough by day. The 
thought of what might issue from it by night was 
unpleasant, and the legends of the Cross-Roads, 
together with an imshapen threat, easily fancied in 
the atmosphere of the place, made Miss Sherwood 
shiver as though a cold draught had crossed her. 

“It is so sinister!” she exclaimed. “And so 
unspeakably mean! This is where they live, the 
people who hate him, is it? The ‘White-Caps’?” 

“They are just a lot of rowdies,” replied Briscoe. 
“You have your rough corners in big cities, and I 
expect there are mighty few parts of any country 
that don’t have their tough neighborhoods, only 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 61 

Six-Cross-Roads happens to be worse than most. 
They choose to call themselves ‘White-Caps/ but 
I guess it’s just a name they like to give themselves. 
Usually White-Caps are a vigilance committee going 
after rascalities the law doesn’t reach, or won’t 
reach, but these fellows are not that kind. They 
got together to wipe out their grudges—and some¬ 
times they didn’t need any grudge and let loose 
their deviltries just for pure orneriness; setting hay¬ 
stacks afire and such like; or, where a farmer had 
offended them, they would put on their silly toggery 
and take him out at midnight and whip him and 
plunder his house and chase the horses and cattle 
into his corn, maybe. They say the women went 
with them on their raids.” 

“And he was the first to try to stop them?” 

“Well, you see our folks are pretty long-suffer¬ 
ing,” Briscoe replied, apologetically. We’d sort 
of got used to the meanness of the Cross-Roads. It 
took a stranger to stir things up—and he did. He 
sent eight of "em to the penitentiary, some for 
twenty years.” 

As they passed the saloon a man stepped into the 
doorway and looked at them. He was coatless and 
dad in garments worh to the color ol dust; his bare 


62 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


head was curiously malformed, higher on one side 
than on the other, and though the buckboard passed 
rapidly, and at a distance, this singular lopsidedness 
was plainly visible to the occupants, lending an ugly 
significance to his meagre, yellow face. He was 
tall, lean, hard, powerfully built. He eyed the 
strangers with affected languor, and then, when they 
had gone by, broke into sudden, loud laughter. 

“That was Bob Skillett, the worst of the lot,’* 
said the judge. “Harkless sent his son and one 
brother to prison, and it nearly broke his heart that 
he couldn’t swear to Bob.” 

When they were beyond the village and in the 
open road again. Miss Sherwood took a deep breath. 
“I think I breathe more freely,” she said. “That 
was a hideous laugh he sent after us. I had heard 
of places like this before—and I don’t think I care 
to see many of them. As I understand it, Six-Cross- 
Roads is entirely vicious, isn’t it; and bears the same 
relation to the country that the slums do to a city?** 

“That’s about it. They make their own whiskey. 
I presume; and they have their own fights amongst 
themselves, but they settle ’em themselves, too, and 
keep their own counsel and hush it up. Lige Wil¬ 
letts, Minnie’s friend—I gues;^ she’s told you about 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 63 


Lige?—well, Lige Willetts will go anywhere when 
he’s following a covey, though mostly the boys 
leave this part of the country alone when they’re 
hunting; but Lige got into a thicket back of the 
forge one morning, and he came on a crowd of 
buzzards quarrelling over a heap on the ground, and 
he got out in a hurry. He said he was sure it was a 
dog; but he ran almost all the way to Plattville.” 

“Father!” exclaimed his daughter, leaning from 
the back seat. “Don’t tell such stories to Helen; 
she’ll think we’re horrible, and you’ll frighten her, 
too.” 

“Well, it isn’t exactly a lady’s story,” said the 
judge. He glanced at his guest’s face and chuckled. 
“I guess we won’t frighten her much,” he went on. 
“Young lady, I don’t believe you’d be afraid of 
many things, would you.^ You don’t look like it. 
Besides, the Cross-Roads isn’t Plattville, and the 
White-Caps have been too scared to do anything 
much, except try to get even with the ‘Herald,’ for 
the last two years; ever since it went for them. 
They’re laying for Harkless partly for revenge and 
partly because they daren’t do anything until he’s 
out of the way.” 

The girl gave a liw cry with a sharp intake of 


64 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


breath. “Ah! One grows tired of this everlasting 
American patience! Why don’t the Plattvillj 

people do something before they-” 

“It’s just as I say,” Briscoe answered; “our 
folks are sort of used to them. I expect we do about 
all we can; the boys look after him nights, and the 
main trouble is that we can’t make him under¬ 
stand he ought to be more afraid of them. If he’d 
lived here all his life he would be. You know there’s 
an old-time feud between the Cross-Roads and our 
folks; goes way back into pioneer history and 
mighty few know anything of it. Old William 
Platt and the forefathers of the Bardlocks and 
Tibbses and Briscoes and Schofields moved up here 
from North Carolina a good deal just to get away 
from some bad neighbors, mostly Skilletts and 
Johnsons—one of the Skilletts had killed old William 
Platt’s two sons. But the Skilletts and Johnsons 
followed all the way to Indiana to join in making 
the new settlement, and they shot Platt at his cabin 
door one night, right where the court-house stands 
to-day. Then the other settlers drove them out for 
good, and they went seven miles west and set up 
a still. A band of Indians, on the way to join the 
Shawnee Prophet at Tippecaiioe, came down on 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 65 


the Cross-Roads, and the Cross-Roaders bought 
them off with bad whiskey and sent them over to 
Plattville. Nearly all the Plattville men were away, 
fighting under Harrison, and when they came back 
there were only a few half-crazy women and chil¬ 
dren left. They’d hid in the woods. 

“The men stopped just long enough to hear how 
it was, and started for the Cross-Roads; but the 
Cross-Roads people caught them in an ambush and 
not many of our folks got back. 

“We really never did get even with them, though 
all the early settlers lived and died still expecting to 
see the day when Plattville would go over and pay 
off the score. It’s the same now as it was then, good 
stock with us, bad stock over here; and afl the 
country riff-raff in creation come and live with ’em 
when other places get too hot to hold them. Only 
one or two of us old folks know what the original 
trouble was about; but you ask a Plattville man, to¬ 
day, what he thinks of the Cross-Roads and he’ll be 
mighty apt to say, T guess we’ll all have to go over 
there some time and wipe those hoodlums out.’ It’s 
been coming to that a long time. The work the 
‘Herald’ did has come nearer bringing us even with 
Six-Cross-Roads than anything else ever has. 


66 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


Queer, too—a man that’s only lived in Plattville « 
few years to be settling such an old score for us. 
They’ll do their best to get him, and if they do 
there’ll be trouble of an illegal nature. I think our 
people would go over there again, but I expect there 
wouldn’t be any ambush this time; and the pioneers, 

might rest easier in-” He broke off suddenly 

and nodded to a little old man in a buckboard, who 
was turning off from the road into a farm lane which 
led up to a trim cottage with a honeysuckle vine by 
the door. “That’s Mrs. Wimby’s husband,” said 
the judge in an undertone. 

Miss Sherwood observed that “Mrs. Wimby’s 
husband” was remarkable for the exceeding plain¬ 
tiveness of his expression. He was a weazened, 
blank, pale-eyed little man, with a thin, white mist of 
neck whisker; his coat was so large for him that the 
sleeves were rolled up from his wrists with several 
lurns, and, as he climbed painfully to the ground 
lo open the gate of the lane, it needed no perspic¬ 
uous eye to perceive that his trousers had been made 
for a much larger man, for, as his uncertain foot 
left the step of his vehicle, one baggy leg of the gar¬ 
ment fell down over his foot, completely concealing 
his boot and hanging some inches beneath. A 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 6? 

faintly vexed expression crossed his face as he en¬ 
deavored to arrange the disorder, but he looked up 
and returned Briscoe’s bow, sadly, with an air of 
explaining that he was accustomed to trouble, and 
that the trousers had behaved no worse than he 
expected. 

No more inoffensive or harmless figure than this 
feeble little old man could be imagined; yet his was 
the distinction of having received a terrible visit 
from his neighbors of the Cross-Roads. Mrs. Wimby 
was a widow, who owned a comfortable farm, and 
she had refused every offer of the neighboring in¬ 
eligible bachelors to share it. However, a vaga¬ 
bonding tinker won her heart, and after their mar¬ 
riage she continued to be known as “Mrs. Wimby”; 
for so complete was the bridegroom’s insignificance 
that it extended to his name, which proved quite 
unrememberable, and he was usually called “Widder- 
Woman Wimby’s Husband,” or, more simply, “Mr. 
Wimby.” The bride supplied the needs of his ward¬ 
robe with the garments of her former husband, and, 
alleging this pro<xeding as the cause of their anger, the 
Cross-Roi?ds raiders, clad as “White-Caps,” broke 
into the farmhouse one night, looted it, tore the old 
man from his bi;d, and compelling his wife, who wa3 


68 THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 


tenderly devoted to him, to watch, they lashed him 
with sapling shoots till he was near to death. A little 
yellow cur, that had follow ed his master on his wan¬ 
derings, was found licking the old man’s wounds, 
and they deluged the dog with kerosene and then 
threw the poor animal upon a bonfire they had made, 
and danced around it in heartiest enjoyment. 

The man recovered, but that was no palliation of 
the offense to the mind of a hot-eyed young man 
from the East, who was besieging the county au¬ 
thorities for redress and writing brimstone and 
saltpetre for his paper. The powers of the county 
proving either lackadaisical or timorous, he ap¬ 
pealed to those of the State, and he went every night 
to sleep at a farmhouse, the owner of which had 
received a warning from the “White-Caps.” And 
one night it befell that he was rewarded, for the 
raiders attempted an entrarice. He and the farmer 
and the former’s sons beat off the marauders and 
did a satisfactory amount of damage in return. Two 
of the “White-Caps” they captured and bound, and 
others they recognized. Then the State authorities 
hearkened to the voice of the “Herald” and its owner; 
there were arrests, and in the course of time there 
was a trial. Every prisoner proved an alibi, could 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 69 


have proved a dozen; but the editor of the “Herald,” 
after virtually conducting the prosecution, went 
upon the stand and swore to man after man. Eight 
men went to the penitentiary on his evidence, five 
of them for twenty years. The Plattville Brass 
Band serenaded the editor of the “Herald” again. 

There were no more raids, and the Six-Cross- 
Roads men who were left kept to their hovels, ap¬ 
palled and shaken, but, as time went by and left 
them unmolested, they recovered a measure of their 
hardiness and began to think on what they should 
(jo to the man who had brought misfortune and 
terror upon them. For a long time he had been 
publishing their threatening letters and warnings 
in a column which he headed: “Humor of the 
Day.” 

“Harkless don’t understand the Cross-Roads,” 
Briscoe said to Miss Sherwood as they left the 
Wimby farm behind; “and then he’s like most of 
us; hardly any of us realizes that harm’s ever going 
to come to us. Harkless was anxious enough about 
other people, but-” 

The young lady interrupted him, touching his 
arm. “Look!” she said, “Didn’t you see a child, 
a little girl, ahead of us on the road?” 


70 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


‘T noticed one a minute ago, but she’s not there 
now,” answered Briscoe. 

“There was a child walking along the road just 
ahead, but she turned and saw us coming, and she 
disappeared in the most curious way; she seemed to 
melt into the weeds at the roadside, across from the 
elder-bush yonder.” 

The judge pulled in the horses by the elder-bush. 
“No child here, now,” he said, “but you’re right; 
there certainly was one, just before you spoke.” The 
young corn was low in the fields, and there was no 
hiding-place in sight. 

“I’m very superstitious; I am sure it was an imp,” 
Miss Sherwood said. “An imp or a very large 
chameleon; she was exactly the color of the road.” 

“A Cross-Roads imp,” said the judge, lifting the 
reins, “and in that case we might as well give up. I 
never set up to be a match for those people, and 
the children are as mean as their fathers, and 
smarter.” 

When the buckboard had rattled on a hundred 
yards or so, a little figure clad in a tattered cotton 
gown rose up from the weeds, not ten feet from 
where the judge had drawn rein, and continued its 
march down the road toward Plattville, capering in 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 71 


the dust and pursuing the buckboard with malig-* 
nant gestures till the clatter of the horses was out of 
hearing, the vehicle out of sight. 

Something over two hours later, as Mr. Martin 
was putting things to rights in his domain, the Dry- 
Goods Emporium, previous to his departure for the 
evening’s gossip and checkers at the drug-store, he 
stumbled over something soft, lying on the floor 
behind a counter. The thing rose, and would have 
evaded him, but he put out his hands and pinioned 
it and dragged it to the show-window where the 
light of the fading day defined his capture. The 
capture shrieked and squirmed and fought earnestly. 
Grasped by the shoulder he held a lean, fierce-eyed, 
undersized girl of fourteen, clad in one ragged cot¬ 
ton garment, unless the coat of dust she wore over 
all may be esteemed another. Her cheeks were 
sallow, and her brow was already shrewdly lined, 
and her eyes were as hypocritical as they were 
savage. She was very thin and little, but old Tom’s 
brown face grew a shade nearer white when the light 
fell upon her. 

“You’re no Plattville girl,” he said sharply. 

“You lie!” cried the child. “You lie! I am! 


72 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

You leave me go, will you? I’m lookin’ fer pap and 
you’re a liar!” 

“You crawled in here to sleep, after your seven- 
mile walk, didn’t you?” Martin went on. 

“You’re a liar,” she screamed again. 

“Look here,” said Martin, slowly, “you go back 
to Six-Cross-Roads and tell your folks that if any¬ 
thing happens to a hair of Mr. Harkless’s head 
every shanty in your town will burn, and your 
grandfather and your father and your uncles and 
your brothers and your cousins and your second- 
cousins and your third-cousins will never have the 
good luck to see the penitentiary. Reckon you can 
remember that message? But before I let you go 
to carry it, I guess you might as well hand out the 
paper they sent you over here with.” 

His prisoner fell into a paroxysm of rage, and 
struck at him. 

“I’ll git pap to kill ye,” she shrieked. “I don’ 
know nothin’ ’bout yer Six-Cross-Roads, ner no 
papers, ner yer dam Mister Harkels neither, ner you, 
ye razor-backed ole devil! Pap’ll kill ye; leave me 
go—leave me go! —Pap’ll kill ye; I’ll git iiim to kill 
ye!” Suddenly her struggles ceased; her eyes 
closed; her tense little muscles relaxed and sh^ 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 7S 

drooped toward the floor; the old man shifted his 
grip to support her, and in an instant she twisted 
out of his hands and sprang out of reach, her eyes 
shining with triumph and venom. 

“Ya-hay, Mister Razor-back!” she shrilled. 
“How’s that fer hi.^ Pap’ll kill ye, Sunday. You’ll 
be screechin’ in hell in a week, an’ we ’ull set up an’ 
drink our apple-jack an’ laff!” Martin pursued 
her lumberingly, but she was agile as a monkey, 
and ran dodging up and down the counters and 
mocked him, singing “Gran’ mammy Tipsy-Toe,” 
till at last she tired of the game and darted out of 
the door, flinging back a hoarse laugh at him as she 
went. He followed; but when he reached the street 
she was a mere shadow flitting under the court¬ 
house trees. He looked after her forebodingly, then 
turned his eyes toward the Palace Hotel. The 
editor of the “Herald” was seated under the awning, 
with his chair tilted back against a post, gazing 
dreamily at the murky red afterglow in the west. 

“What’s the use of tryin’ to bother him with it?” 
old Tom asked himself. “He’d only laugh.” He 
noted that young William Todd sat near the editor, 
whittling absently. Martin chuckled. “William’s 
turn to-night,” he muttered. “Well, the boys take 


74 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


mighty good care of him/’ He locked the doors of 
the Emporium, tried them, and dropped the keys 
in his pocket. 

As he crossed the Square to the drug-store, where 
his cronies awaited him, he turned again to look at 
the figure of the musing journalist. ‘T hope he’ll 
go out to the judge’s,” he said, and shook his head, 
sadly. ‘T don’t reckon Plattville’s any too spry for 
that young man. Five years he’s be’n here. Well, 
it’s a good thing for us folks, but I guess it ain’t 
exactly high-life for him.” He kicked a stick out 
of his way impatiently. ‘‘Now, where’d that imp 
run to?” he grumbled. 

The imp was lying under the court-house steps. 
When the sound of Martin’s footsteps had passed 
away, she crept cautiously from her hiding-place 
and stole through the ungroomed grass to the fence 
opposite the hotel. Here she stretched herself flat 
in the weeds and took from underneath the tangled 
masses of her hair, where it was tied with a string, 
a rolled-up, crumpled slip of greasy paper. With 
this in her fingers, she lay peering under the fence, her 
fierce eyes fixed unwinkingly on Harkless and the 
youth sitting near him. 

The street ran flat and gray in the slowly gather 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 75 

ing dusk, straight to the western horizon where the 
sunset embers were strewn in long, dark-red streaks; 
the maple trees were clean-cut silhouettes against 
the pale rose and pearl tints of the sky above, and 
a tenderness seemed to tremble in the air. Harkless 
often vowed to himself he would watch no more 
sunsets in Plattville; he realized that their loveliness 
lent a too unhappy tone to the imaginings and 
introspections upon which he was throvni by the 
loneliness of the environment, and he considered 
that he had too much time in which to think about 
himself. For five years his introspections had 
monotonously hurled one word at him: “Failure; 
Failure! Failure!” He thought the sunsets were 
making him morbid. Could he have shared them, 
that would have been different. 

His long, melancholy face grew longer and more 
melancholy in the twilight, while William Todd 
patiently whittled near by. Plattville had often 
discussed the editor’s habit of silence, and Mr. 
Martin had suggested that possibly the reason 
Mr. Harkless was such a quiet man was that there 
was nobody for him to talk to. His hearers did 
not agree, for the population of Carlow County v/as 
a thing of pride, being greater than that of several 


76 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


bordering counties. They did agree, however, that 
Harkless’s quiet was not unkind, whatever its cause, 
and that when it was broken it was usually broken 
to conspicuous effect. Perhaps it was because he 
wrote so much that he hated to talk. 

A bent figure came slowly down the street, and 
William hailed it cheerfully: “Evening, Mr. 
Fisbee.” 

“A good evening, Mr. Todd,” answered the old 
man, pausing. “Ah, Mr. Harkless, I was looking 
for you.” He had not seemed to be looking for any¬ 
thing beyond the boundaries of his own dreams, 
but he approached Harkless, tugging nervously at 
some papers in his pocket. “I have completed my 
notes for our Saturday edition. It was quite easy; 
there is much doing.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Fisbee,” said Harkless, as he 
took the manuscript. “Have you finished your 
paper on the earlier Christian symbolism? I hope 
the ‘Herald’ may have the honor of printing it.” 
This was the form they used. 

“I shall be the recipient of honor, sir,” returned 
Fisbee. “Your kind offer will speed my work; but 
I fear, Mr. Harkless, I very much fear, that your 
kindness alone prompts it, for, deeply as I desire it. 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 77 

I cannot truthfully say that my essays appear to 
increase our circulation.” He made an odd, troubled 
gesture as he went on: “They do not seem to read 
them here, Mr. Harkless, although Mr. Martin 
assures me that he carefully peruses my article on 
Chaldean decoration whenever he rearranges his 
exhibition windows, and I bear in mind the clipping 
from a Rouen paper you showed me, commenting 
generously upon the scholarship of the ‘Herald.’ 
But for fifteen years I have tried to improve the art 
feeling in Plattville, and I may say that I have 
worked in the face of no small discouragement. In 
fact,” (there was a slight quaver in Fisbee’s voice), 
“I cannot remember that I ever received the shghtest 
word or token of encouragement till you came, Mr. 
Harkless. Since then I have labored with refreshed 
energy; still, I cannot claim that our architecture 
shows a change for the better, and I fear the engrav¬ 
ings upon the walls of our people exhibit no great 
progress in selection. And—I—I wish also to say, 
Mr. Harkless, if you find it necessary to make some 
alterations in the form of my reportorial items for 
Saturday’s issue, I shall perfectly understand, 
remembering your explanation that journalism 
demands it. Good-evening, Mr. Harkless. Good- 


78 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


evening, Mr. Todd,” He plodded on a few paces, 
then turned, irresolutely. 

“What is it, Fisbee?” asked Harkless. 

Fisbee stood for a moment, as though about to 
speak, then he smiled faintly, shook his head, and 
went his way. Harkless stared after him, surprised. 
It suddenly struck him, with a feeling of irritation, 
that if Fisbee had spoken it would have been to 
advise him to call at Judge Briscoe’s. He laughed 
impatiently at the notion, and, drawing his pencil 
and a pad from his pocket, proceeded to injure 
his eyes in the waning twilight by the editorial 
perusal of the items his staff had just left in his 
hands. When published, the manuscript came under 
a flaring heading, bequeathed by Harkless’s prede« 
cessor in the chair of the “Herald,” and the altera¬ 
tion of which he felt Plattville would refuse to 
sanction: “Happenings of Our City.” Below, 
was printed in smaller type: “Improvements in 
the World of Business,” and, beneath that, came 
the rubric: “Also, the Cradle, the Altar, and the 
Tomb.” 

The first of Fisbee’s items was thus recorded: “It 
may be noted that the new sign-board of Mr. H. 
Miller has been put in place. We cannot but regret 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 79 


that Mr. Miller did not instruct the painter to con¬ 
fine himself to a simpler method of lettering.” 

“Ah, Fisbee,” murmured the editor, reproach¬ 
fully, “that new sign-board is almost the only im¬ 
provement in the World of Business Plattville has 
seen this year. I wonder how many times we have 
used it from the first, Tt is rumored in business 
circles that Herve Miller contemplates’—to the 
exciting, ‘Under Way,’ and, ‘Finishing Touches.’ 
My poor White Emight, are five years of training 
wasted on you.^ Sometimes you make me fear it. 
Here is Plattville panting for our story of the hang¬ 
ing of the sign, and you throw away the climax like 
that!” He began to write rapidly, bending low over 
the pad in the half darkness. His narrative was an 
amplification of the interesting information (already 
possessed by every inhabitant) that Herve Miller 
had put up a new sign. After a paragraph of hand¬ 
some description, “Herve is always enterprising,” 
wrote the editor. “This is a move in the right 
direction. Herve, keep it up.” 

He glanced over the other items meditatively, 
making alterations here and there. The last two 
Fisbee had written as follows: 

“There is noticeable in the new (and somewhat 


80 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM ULIANA 


incongruous) portico erected by Solomon Tibbs at 
the residence of Mr. Henry Tibbs Willetts, an at¬ 
tempt at rococo decoration which cannot fail to 
sadden the passer-by.” 

“Miss Sherwood of Rouen, whom Miss Briscoe 
knew at the Misses Jennings’ finishing-school in 
New York, is a guest of Judge Briscoe’s household.” 

Fisbee’s items were written in ink; and there was a 
blank space beneath the last. At the bottom of the 
page something had been scribbled in pencil. Hark- 
less tried vainly to decipher it, but the twilight had 
fallen too deep, and the writing was too faint, so he 
struck a match and held it close to the paper. The 
action betokened only a languid interest, but when 
he caught sight of the first of the four subscribed 
lines he sat up straight in his chair with an ejacula^ 
tion. At the bottom of Fisbee’s page was written in 
a dainty, feminine hand, of a type he had not seen for 
years: 


* ‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, 
‘To talk of many things: 

Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax— 
And cabbages—and kings—’ ” 


He put the paper in his pocket, and set off rapidly 
down the village street. 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 81 


At his departure William Todd looked up quickly; 
then he got upon his feet and quietly followed the 
editor. In the dusk a tattered little figure rose up 
from the weeds across the way, and stole noiselessly 
after William. He was in his shirt-sleeves, his 
waistcoat unbuttoned and loose. On the nearest 
comer Mr. Todd encountered a fellow-townsman, 
who had been pacing up and down in front of a cot¬ 
tage, crooning to a protestive baby held in his arms. 
He had paused in his vigil to stare after Harkless. 

“Where’s he bound for, William.?” inquired the 
man with the baby. 

“Briscoes’,” answered William, pursuing his way. 

“I reckoned he would be,” commented the other, 
turning to his wife, who sat on the doorstep, “I 
reckoned so when I see that lady at the lecture last 
night.” 

The woman rose to her feet. “Hi, Bill Todd!” 
she said. “What you got onto the back of your 
vest?” William paused, put his hand behind him 
and encountered a paper pinned to the dangling 
strap of his waistcoat. The woman ran to him and 
unpinned the paper. It bore a writing. They took 
it to where the yellow lamp-light shone through the 
open door, and read: 



82 THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 

“der Sir 

“FoLer harkls aL yo pies an gaRd him yoR 
best venagesn is closteR, harkls not Got 3 das to liv 

“We come in Wite.” 

“What ye think, William?” asked the man with 
the baby, anxiously. But the woman gave the 
youth a sharp push with her hand. “They never 
dast to do it!” she cried. “Never in the world! 
You hurry. Bill Todd. Don’t you leave him out 
of your sight one second.” 



CHAPTER V 


A.T THE PASTURE BARS: ELDER-BUSHES MAY HAVE 
STINGS 


T he street upon which the Palace Hotel 
fronted formed the south side of the Square 
and ran west to the edge of the town, where 
it turned to the south for a quarter of a mile or 
more, then bent to the west again. Some distance 
from this second turn, there stood, fronting close on 
the road, a large brick house, the most pretentious 
mansion in Carlow County. And yet it was a home¬ 
like place, with its red-brick walls embowered in 
masses of cool Virginia creeper, and a comfortable 
veranda crossing the broad front, while half a hun¬ 
dred stalwart sentinels of elm and beech and poplar 
stood guard around it. The front walk was bordered 
by geraniums and hollyhocks; and honeysuckle 
climbed the pillars of the porch. Behind the house 
there was a shady little orchard; and, back of the 
orchard, an old-fashioned, very fragrant rose-garden. 


84 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


divided by a long grape arbor, extended to the 
shallow waters of a wandering creek; and on the 
bank a rustic seat was placed, beneath the syca¬ 
mores. 

From the first bend of the road, where it left the 
town and became (after some indecision) a country 
highway—called the pike—rather than a proud city 
boulevard, a pathway led through the fields to end 
at some pasture bars opposite the brick house. 

John Harkless was leaning on the pasture bars« 
The stars were wan, and the full moon shone over 
the fields. Meadows and woodlands lay quiet under 
the old, sweet marvel of a June night. In the wide 
monotony of the flat lands, there sometimes comes a 
feeling that the whole earth is stretched out before 
one. To-night it seemed to lie so, in the pathos of 
silent beauty, all passive and still; yet breathing an 
antique message, sad, mysterious, reassuring. But 
there had come a divine melody adrift on the air. 
Through the open windows it floated. Indoors 
some one struck a peal of silver chords, like a harp 
touched by a lover, and a woman’s voice was lifted. 
John Harkless leaned on the pasture bars and lis¬ 
tened with upraised head and parted lips. 

“To thy chamber window roving, love hath led ray feet 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 85 

The Lord sent manna to the children of Israel in 
the wilderness. Harkless had been five years in 
Plattville, and a woman’s voice singing Schubert’s 
serenade came to him at last as he stood by the 
pasture bars of Jones’s field and listened and rested 
his dazzled eyes on the big, white face of the 
moon. 

How long had it been since he had heard a song, 
or any discourse of music other than that furnished 
by the Plattville Band—not that he had not taste 
for a brass band! But music that he loved always 
gave him an ache of delight and the twinge of 
reminiscences of old, gay days gone forever. To¬ 
night his memory leaped to the last day of a June 
gone seven years; to a morning when the little 
estuary waves twinkled in the bright sun about the 
boat in which he sat, the trim launch that brought a 
cheery party ashore from their schooner to the 
Casino landing at Winter Harbor, far up on the 
Maine coast. 

It was the happiest of those last irresponsible days 
before he struck into his w®rk in the world and 
became a failure. To-night he saw the picture as 
plainly as if it were yesterday; no reminiscence had 
risen so keenly before his eyes for years: pretty Mrs. 




86 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


Van Skuyt sitting beside him—pretty Mrs. Van 
Skuyt and her roses! What had become of her? 
He saw the crowd of friends waiting on the pier for 
their arrival, and the dozen or so emblazoned class¬ 
mates (it was in the time of brilliant flannels) who 
suddenly sent up a volley of college cheers in his 
honor—how plainly the dear, old, young faces rose 
up before him to-night, the men from whose lives he 
had slipped! Dearest and jolliest of the faces was 
that of Tom Meredith, clubmate, classmate, his 
closest friend, the thin, red-headed third baseman j 
he could see Tom’s mouth opened at least a yard, 
it seemed, such was his frantic vociferousness. Again 
and again the cheers rang out, “Harkless! Harkless!” 
on the end of them. In those days everybody (par¬ 
ticularly his classmates) thought he would be minis¬ 
ter to England in a few years, and the orchestra on 
the Casino porch was playing “The Conquering 
Hero,” in his honor, and at the behest of Tom Mere¬ 
dith, he knew. 

There were other pretty ladies besides Mrs. Van 
Skuyt in the launch-load from the yacht, but, as 
they touched the pier, pretty girls, or pretty women, 
or jovial gentlemen, all were overlooked in the wild 
scramble the college men made for their hero. They 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 87 


haled him forth, set him on high, bore him on their 
shoulders, shouting “Skal to the Viking!” and car¬ 
ried him up the wooded bluff to the Casino. He 
heard Mrs. Van Skuyt say, “Oh, we’re used to it; 
we’ve put in at several other places where he had 
friends!” He struggled manfully to be set down, 
but his triumphal procession swept on. He heard 
bystanders telling each other, “It’s that young 
Harkless, ‘the Great Harkless,’ they’re all so mad 
about”; and while it pleased him a little to hear 
such things, they always made him laugh a great 
deal. He had never understood his popularity: he 
had been chief editor of the university daily, and he 
had done a little in athletics, and the rest of his 
distinction lay in college offices his mates had heaped 
upon him without his being able to comprehend 
why they did it. And yet, somehow, and in spite 
of himself, they had convinced him that the world 
was his oyster; that it would open for him at a 
touch. He could not help seeing how the Freshmen 
looked at him, how the Sophomores jumped off the 
narrow campus walks to let him pass; he could not 
help knowing that he was the great man of his 
time, so that “The Great Harkless” came to be one 
of the traditions of the university. He remembered 


88 THE GENTLEIHAN FROM INDIANA 


the wild progress they made for him up the slope 
that morning at Winter Harbor, how the people 
looked on, and laughed, and clapped their hands. 
But at the veranda edge he had noticed a little form 
disappearing around a corner of the building; a 
young girl running away as fast as she could. 

“See there!” he said, as the tribe set him down, 
“You have frightened the populace.” And Tom 
Meredith stopped shouting long enough to answer, 
“It’s my little cousin, overcome with emotion. She’s 
been counting the hours till you came—been hearing 
of you from me and others for a good while; and 
hasn’t been able to talk or think of anything else. 
She’s only fifteen, and the crucial moment is too 
much for her—the Great Harkless has arrived, and 
she has fied.” 

He remembered other incidents of his greatness, 
of the glory that now struck him as rarely comical; 
he hoped he hadn’t taken it too seriously then, in the 
fiush of his youth. Maybe, after all, he had been 
a big-headed boy, but he must have bottled up his 
conceit tightly enough, or the other boys would 
have detected it and abhorred him. He was in¬ 
clined to believe that he had not been very much 
set up by the pomp they made for him. At all 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 89 


events, that day at Winter Harbor had been beauti¬ 
ful, full of the laughter of friends and music; for 
there was a musicale at the Casino in the after¬ 
noon. 

But the present hour grew on him as he leaned on 
the pasture bars, and suddenly his memories sped; 
and the voice that was singing Schubert’s serenade 
across the way touched him with the urgent, per¬ 
sonal appeal that a present beauty always had for 
him. It was a soprano; and without tremoloy yet 
came to his ear with a certain tremulous sweetness; 
it was soft and slender, but the listener knew it could 
be lifted with fullness and power if the singer would. 
It spoke only of the song, yet the listener thought 
of the singer. Under the moon thoughts run into 
dreams, and he dreamed that the owner of the voice, 
she who quoted “The Walrus and the Carpenter” 
on Fisbee’s notes, was one to laugh with you and 
weep with you; yet her laughter would be tempered 
with sorrow, and her tears with laughter. 

When the song was ended, he struck the rail he 
leaned upon a sharp blow with his open hand. 
There swept over him a feeling that he had stood 
precisely where he stood now, on such a night, a 
thousand years ago, had heard that voice and that 


90 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


song, had listened and been moved by the song, and 
the night, just as he was moved now. 

He had long known himself for a sentimentalist; 
he had almost given up trying to cure himself. x\nd 
he knew himself for a born lover; he had always 
been in love with some one. In his earlier youth 
his affections had been so constantly inconstant that 
he finally came to settle with his self-respect by rec¬ 
ognizing in himself a fine constancy that worshipped 
one woman always—it was only the shifting image 
of her that changed! Somewhere (he dreamed, 
whimsically indulgent of the fancy; yet mocking 
himself for it) there was a girl whom he had never 
seen, who waited till he should come. She was 
Everything. Until he found her, he could not help 
adoring others who possessed little pieces and sug¬ 
gestions of her—her brilliancy, her courage, her 
short upper lip, ‘‘like a curled roseleaf,’’ or her dear 
voice, or her pure profile. He had no recollection of 
any lady who had quite her eyes. 

He had never passed a lovely stranger on the 
street, in the old days, without a thrill of delight and 
warmth. If he never saw her again, and the vision 
only lasted the time it takes a lady to cross the side¬ 
walk from a shop door to a carriage, he was always 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 91 

a little in love with her, because she bore about her, 
somewhere, as did every pretty girl he ever saw, a 
suggestion of the far-away divinity. One does not 
pass lovely strangers in the streets of Plattville. 
Miss Briscoe was pretty, but not at all in the way 
that Harkless dreamed. For five years the lover in 
him that had loved so often had been starved of all 
but dreams. Only at twilight and dusk in the sum¬ 
mer, when, strolling, he caught sight of a woman’s 
skirt, far up the village street—half-outlined in the 
darkness under the cathedral arch of meeting 
branches—this romancer of petticoats could sigh a 
true lover’s sigh, and, if he kept enough distance 
between, fly a yearning fancy that his lady wandered 
there. 

Ever since his university days the image of her 
had been growing more and more distinct. He had 
completely settled his mind as to her appearance 
and her voice. She was tall, almost too tall, he was 
sure of that; and out of his consciousness there had 
grown a sweet and vivacious young face that he 
knew was hers. Her hair was light-brown with gold 
lustres (he reveled in the gold lustres, on the proper 
theory that when your fancy is painting a picture 
you may as well go in for the whole thing and make 


92 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

it sumptuous), and her eyes were gray. They were 
very earnest, and yet they sparkled and laughed to 
him companionably; and sometimes he had smiled 
back upon her. The Undine danced before him 
through the lonely years, on fair nights in his walks, 
and came to sit by his fire on winter evenings when 
he stared alone at the embers. 

And to-night, here in Plattville, he heard a voice 
he had waited for long, one that his fickle memory 
told him he had never heard before. But, listen¬ 
ing, he knew better—^he had heard it long ago, 
though when and how, he did not know, as rich and 
true, and ineffably tender as now. He threw a sop 
to his common sense. “Miss Sherwood is a little 
thing” (the image was so surely tall) “with a bumpy 
forehead and spectacles,” he said to himself, “or else 
a provincial young lady with big eyes to pose at 
you.” Then he felt the ridiculousness of looking 
after his common sense on a moonlight night in 
June; also, he knew that he lied. 

The song had ceased, but the musician lingered, 
and the keys were touched to plaintive harmonies 
new to him. He had come to Plattville before 
“Cavalleria Rusticana” was sung at Rome, and now, 
entranced, he heard the “Intermezzo” for the first 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 93 

time. Listening to this, he feared to move lest he 
should wake from a summer-night’s dream. 

A ragged little shadow flitted down the path be¬ 
hind him, and from a solitary apple-tree, standing 
like a lonely ghost in the middle of the fleld, came 
the woo of a screech owl—twice. It was answered— 
twice—from a clump of elder-bushes that grew in a 
fence-corner flfty yards west of the pasture bars. 
Then the barrel of a squirrel rifle issued, lifted out of 
the white elder-blossoms, and lay along the fence. 
The music in the house across the way ceased, and 
Harkless saw two white dresses come out through 
the long parlor windows to the veranda. 

‘Tt will be cooler out here,” came the voice of the 
singer clearly through the quiet. “What a night!” 

John vaulted the bars and started to cross the 
road. They saw him from the veranda, and Miss 
Briscoe called to him in welcome. As his tall figure 
stood out plainly in the bright light against the 
white dust, a streak of fire leaped from the elder- 
blossoms and there rang out the sharp report of a 
rifle. There were two screams from the veranda. 
One white figure ran into the house. The other, a 
little one with a gauzy wrap streaming behind, came 
flying out into the moonlight—straight to Harkless. 


94 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

There was a second report; the rifle-shot was an¬ 
swered by a revolver. William Todd had risen up, 
apparently from nowhere, and, kneeling by the pas¬ 
ture bars, fired at the flash of the rifle. 

“Jump fer the shadder, Mr. Harkless,” he shouted; 
“he’s in them elders,” and then: “Fer God’s sake, 
come back!” 

Empty-handed as he was, the editor dashed for 
the treacherous elder-bush as fast as his long legs 
could carry him; but, before he had taken six strides, 
a hand clutched his sleeve, and a girl’s voice qua¬ 
vered from close behind him: 

“Don’t run like that, Mr. Harkless; I can’t keep 
up!” He wheeled about, and confronted a vision, a 
dainty little figure about five feet high, a flushed and 
lovely face, hair and draperies disarranged and fly¬ 
ing. He stamped his foot with rage. “Get back in 
the house!” he cried. 

“You mustn’t go,” she panted. “It’s the only 
way to stop you.” 

“Go back to the house!” he shouted, savagely. 

“Will you come?” 

“Fer God’s sake,” cried William Todd, “come 
back! Keep out of the road.” He was emptying 
his revolver at the clump of elder, the uproar of his 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 95 


firing blasting the night. Some one screamed from 
the house: 

‘^Eelenl Eelenr 

John seized the girl’s wrists roughly; her gray 
eyes flashed into his defiantly. “Will you go?” he 
roared. 

“No!” 

He dropped her wrists, caught her up in his arms 
as if she had been a kitten, and leaped into the 
shadow of the trees that leaned over the road from 
the yard. The rifle rang out again, and the little 
ball whistled venomously overhead. Harkless ran 
along the fence and turned in at the gate. 

A loose strand of the girl’s hair blew across his 
cheek, and in the moon her head shone with gold. 
She had light-brown hair and gray eyes and a short 
upper lip like a curled rose-leaf. He set her down 
on the veranda steps. Both of them laughed wildly. 

“But you came with me!” she gasped trium¬ 
phantly. 

“I always thought you were tall,” he answered; 
and there was afterward a time when he had to 
agree that this was a somewhat vague reply. 


CHAPTER VI 


JUNE 


UDGE BRISCOE smiled grimly and leaned 



on his shot-gun in the moonlight by the 


veranda. He and William Todd had been 
trampling down the elder-bushes, and returning to 
the house, found Minnie alone on the porch. “Safe.?’’ 
he said to his daughter, who turned an anxious 
face upon him. “They’ll be safe enough now, and 
in our garden.” 

“Maybe I oughtn’t to have let them go,” she 
returned, nervously. 

“Pooh! They’re all right; that scalawag’s half¬ 
way to Six-Cross-Roads by this time, isn’t he^ 
William?” 

“He tuck up the fence like a scared rabbit,” Mr. 
Todd responded, looking into his hat to avoid meet¬ 
ing the eyes of the lady. “I didn’t have no call to 
foller, and he knowed how to run, I reckon. Time 
Mr. Harkless come out the yard again, he was 


96 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 97 

near out o’ sight, and we see him take across the 
road to the wedge-woods, near half-a-mile up. 
Somebody else with him then—looked like a kid. 
Must ’a’ cut acrost the field to join him. They’re 
fur enough towards home by this.” 

“Did Miss Helen shake hands with you four or 
five times?” asked Briscoe, chuckling. 

“No. Why?” 

“Because Harkless did. My hand aches, and I 
guess William’s does, too; he nearly shook our arms 
off when we told him he’d been a fool. Seemed to 
do him good. I told him he ought to hire some¬ 
body to take a shot at him every morning before 
breakfast—not that it’s any joking matter,” the old 
gentleman finished, thoughtfully. 

“I should say not,” said William, with a deep 
frown and a jerk of his head toward the rear of the 
house. ''He jokes about it enough. Wouldn’t even 
promise to carry a gun after this. Said he wouldn’t 
know how to use it. Never shot one off since he 
was a boy, on the Fourth of July. This is the third 
time he’s be’n shot at this year, but he says the 
others was at a—a—what’d he call it?” 

“ ‘A merely complimentary range,’ ” Briscoe sup¬ 
plied. He handed William a cigar and bit the end 


QS THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

off another himself. “Minnie, you better go in the 
house and read, I expect—unless you want to go 
down the creek and join those folks.” 

‘'Mer she responded. “I know when to stay 
away, I guess. Do go and put that terrible gun up.” 

“No,” said Briscoe, lighting his cigar, deliber¬ 
ately. “It’s all safe; there’s no question of that; 
but maybe William and I better go out and take 
a smoke in the orchard as long as they stay down 
at the creek.” 

In the garden, shafts of white light pierced the 
bordering trees and fell where June roses lifted their 
heads to breathe the mild night breeze, and here, 
through summer spells, the editor of the “Herald” 
and the lady who had run to him at the pasture bars 
strolled down a path trembling with shadows to 
where the shallow creek tinkled over the pebbles. 
They walked slowly, with an air of being well- 
accustomed friends and comrades, and for some 
reason it did not strike either of them as unnatural 
or extraordinary. They came to a bench oh the 
bank, and he made a great fuss dusting the seat 
for her with his black slouch hat. Then he regretted 
the hat—it was a shabby old hat of a Carlow County 
fashion. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 99 

It was a long bench, and he seated himself rather 
remotely toward the end opposite her, suddenly 
realizing that he had walked very close to her, com¬ 
ing down the narrow garden path. Neither knew 
that neither had spoken since they left the veranda,* 
and it had taken them a long time to come through 
the little orchard and the garden. She rested her 
chin on her hand, leaning forward and looking 
steadily at the creek. Her laughter had quite gone; 
her attitude seemed a little wistful and a little sad. 
He noted that her hair curled over her brow in a 
way he had not pictured in the lady of his dreams; 
this was so much lovelier. He did not care for tall 
girls; he had not cared for them for almost half an 
hour. It was so much more beautiful to be dainty 
and small and piquant. He had no notion that he 
was sighing in a way that would have put a furnace 
to shame, but he turned his eyes from her because 
he feared that if he looked longer he might blurt 
out some speech about her beauty. His glance 
rested on the bank; but its diameter included the 
edge of her white skirt and the tip of a little, white, 
high-heeled slipper that peeped out beneath it; and 
he had to look away from that, too, to keep from 
telling her that he meant to advocate a law com** 


100 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


polling all women to wear crisp, white gowns anJ 
white slippers on moonlight nights. 

She picked a long spear of grass from the turf 
before her, twisted it absently in her fingers, then 
turned to him slowly. Her lips parted as if to 
speak. Then she turned away again. The action 
was so odd, and somehow, as she did it, so ador¬ 
able, and the preserved silence was such a 
bond between them, that for his life he could 
not have helped moving haK-way up the bench 
toward her. 

“What is it?” he asked; and he spoke in a whis¬ 
per he might have used at the bedside of a dying 
friend. He would not have laughed if he had 
known he did so. She twisted the spear of grass 
into a little ball and threw it at a stone in the water 
before she answered. 

“Do you know, Mr. Harkless, you and I haven’t 
‘met,’ have we? Didn’t we forget to be presented 
to each other?” 

“I beg your pardon. Miss Sherwood. In the per¬ 
turbation of comedy I forgot.” 

‘ “It was melodrama, wasn’t it?” she said. He 
laughed, but she shook her head. 

“Comedy,” he answered, “except your part of ib 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 101 

which you shouldn’t have done. It was not ar¬ 
ranged in honor of Visiting ladies.’ But you mustn’t 
think me a comedian. Truly, I didn’t plan it. 
My friend from Six-Cross-Roads must be given 
the credit of devising the scene—though you 
divined it!” 

‘Tt was a little too picturesque, I think. I know 
about Six-Cross-Roads. Please tell me what you 
mean to do.” 

‘‘Nothing. What should I?” 

“You mean that you will keep on letting them 
shoot at you, until they—until you—” She struck 
the bench angrily with her hand. 

“There’s no summer theatre in Six-Cross-Roads; 
there’s not even a church. Why shouldn’t they?” 
he asked gravely. “During the long and tedious 
evenings it cheers the poor Cross-Roader’s soul to 
drop over here and take a shot at me. It whiles 
away dull care for him, and he has the additional 
exercise of running all the way home.” 

“Ah!” she cried indignantly, “they told me you 
always answered like this!” 

“Well, you see the Cross-Roads efforts have 
proved so purely hygienic for me. As a patriot I 
have sometimes felt extreme mortification that such 


10^ THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


bad marksmanship should exist in the county, but 
I console myseK with the thought that their best 
shots are unhappily in the penitentiary.” 

“There are many left. Can’t you understand that 
they will organize again and come in a body, as they 
did before you broke them up? And then, if they 
come on a night when they know you are wander¬ 
ing out of town-” 

“You have not the advantage of an intimate study 
of the most exclusive people of the Cross-Roads, 
Miss Sherwood. There are about twenty gentle¬ 
men who remain in that neighborhood while their 
relatives sojourn under discipline. If you had the 
entre^ over there, you would understand that these 
twenty could not gather themselves into a com¬ 
pany and march the seven miles without physical 
debate in the ranks. They are not precisely amiable 
people, even amongst themselves. They would 
quarrel and shoot each other to pieces long before 
they got here.” 

“But they worked in a company once.” 

“Never for seven miles. Four miles was their 
radius. Five would see them all dead.” 

She struck the bench again. “Oh, you laugh at 
me! You make a joke of your own life and death. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 103 

and laugh at everything! Have five years of Platt- 
ville taught you to do that?” 

“I laugh only at taking the poor Cross-Roaders 
too seriously. I don’t laugh at your running into 
fire to help a fellow-mortal.” 

‘T knew there wasn’t any risk. I knew he had 
to stop to load before he shot again.” 

“He did shoot again. If I had known you before 
to-night—I—” His tone changed and he spoke 
gravely. “I am at yoiu* feet in worship of your 
philanthropy. It’s so much finer to risk your life 
for a stranger than for a friend.” 

“That is rather a man’s point of view, isn’t it?”"- 

“You risked yours for a man you had never seen 
before.” 

“Oh, no! I saw you at the lecture; I heard you 
introduce the Honorable Mr. Hallo way.” 

“Then I don’t understand your wishing to 
save me.” 

She smiled unwillingly, and turned her gray eyes 
upon him with troubled sunniness, and, under the 
kindness of her regard, he set a watch upon his 
lips, though he knew it might not avail him. He 
had driveled along respectably so far, he thought; 
but he had the sentimental longings of years, starved 


104 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


of expression, culminating in his heart. She con- 
tinned to look at him, wistfully, searchingly, gently. 
Then her eyes traveled over his big frame from his 
shoes (a patch of moonlight fell on them; they were 
dusty; he drew them under the bench with a shud¬ 
der) to his broad shoulders (he shook the stoop out 
of them). She stretched her small hands toward 
him in contrast, and broke into the most delicious 
low laughter in the world. At this sound he knew 
the watch on his lips was worthless. It was a ques¬ 
tion of minutes till he should present himself to 
her eyes as a sentimental and susceptible imbecile. 
He knew it. He was in wild spirits. 

‘‘Could you realize that one of your danger*' 
might be a shsking.^^” she cried. “Is your serious¬ 
ness a lost art?” Her laughter ceased suddenly. 
“Ah, no. I understand. Thiers said the French 
laugh always, in order not to weep. I haven’t 
lived here five years. I fihould laugh too, if I were 
you.” 

“Look at the moon,” he responded. “We Platt- 
villains own that with the best of metropolitans, and, 
for my part, I see more of it here. You do not 
appreciate us. We have large landscapes in the 
heart of the city, and what other capital possesses 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 105 


advantages like that? Next winter the railway 
station is to have a new stove for the waiting-room. 
Heaven itself is one of our suburbs—it is so close 
that all one has to do is to die. You insist upon my 
being French, you see, and I know you are fond of 
nonsense. How did you happen to put ‘The Walrus 
and the Carpenter’ at the bottom of a page of 
Fisbee’s notes?” 

“Was it? How were you sure it was I?” 

“In Carlow County!” 

“He might have written it himself.” 

“Fisbee has never in his life read anything lighter 
than cuneiform inscriptions.” 

“Miss Briscoe-” 

“She doesn’t read Lewis Carroll; and it was not 
her hand. What made you write it on Fisbee’s 
manuscript?” 

“He was with us this afternoon, and I teased him 
a little about your heading. ‘Business and the 
Cradle, the Altar, and the Tomb,’ isn’t it? And he 
said it had always troubled him, but that you 
thought it good. So do I. He asked me if I could 
think of anything that you might like better, to 
put in place of it, and I wrote, ‘The time has come,’ 
because it was the only thing I could think of thal 



106 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


was as appropriate and as fetching as your head¬ 
lines. He was perfectly dear about it. He was 
so CiCnous; he said he feared it wouldn’t be accept¬ 
able. I didn’t notice that the paper he handed me 
' to write on was part of his notes, nor did he, I 
think. Afterward, he put it back in his pocket. 
It wasn’t a message.” 

“I’m not so sure he did not notice. He is very 
wise. Do you know, somehow, I have the impres¬ 
sion that the old fellow wanted me to meet you.” 

“How dear and good of him!” She spoke ear¬ 
nestly, and her face was suffused with a warm 
light. There was no doubt about her meaning 
what she said. 

“It was,” John answered, unsteadily. “He knew 
how great was my need of a few moments’ com¬ 
panionableness with—with ” 

“No,” she interrupted. “I meant dear and good 
to me, because I think he was thinking of me, and 
it was for my sake he wanted us to meet.” 

It would have been hard to convince a woman, 
if she had overheard this speech, that Miss Sher¬ 
wood’s humility was not the calculated affectation 
of a coquette. Sometimes a man’s unsuspicion k 
wiser, and Harkless knew that she was not flirting 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 107 

with him. In addition, he was not a fatuous man; 
he did not extend the implication of her words 
nearly so far as she would have had him 

“But I had met you,” said he, “long ago.” 

“What!” she cried, and her eyes danced. “You 
actually remember?” 

“Yes; do you?” he answered. “I stood in 
Jones’s field and heard you singing, and I remem¬ 
bered. It was a long time since I had heard you 
sing: 

“ ‘I was a ruffler of Flanders, 

And fought for a florin’s hire. 

You were the dame of my captain 
And sang to my heart’s desire.’ 

“But that is the balladist’s notion. The truth is 
that you were a lady at the Court of Clovis, and I 
was a heathen captive. I heard you sing a Christian 
hymn—and asked for baptism.” By a great effort 
he managed to look as if he did not mean it. 

But she did not seem over-pleased with his fancy, 
for, the surprise fading from her face, “Oh, that 
was the way you remembered!” she said. 

“Perhaps it was not that way alone. You won’t 
despise me for being mawkish to-night?” he asked. 
“I haven’t had the chance for so long,” 


108 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


The night air wrapped them warmly, and the 
balm of the little breezes that stirred the foliage 
around them was the smell of damask roses from 
the garden. The creek tinkled over the pebbles at 
their feet, and a drowsy bird, half-wakened by 
the moon, crooned languorously in the sycamores. 
The girl looked out at the flashing water through 
downcast lashes. ‘Ts it because it is so transient 
that beauty is pathetic.^” she said; “because we 
can never come back to it in quite the same way? 
I am a sentimental girl. If you are born so, it is 
never entirely teased out of you, is it? Besides, 
to-night is all a dream. It isn’t real, you know. 
You couldn’t be mawkish.” 

Her tone was gentle as a caress, and it made him 
tingle to his finger-tips. “How do you know?” he 
asked in a low voice. 

“I just know. Do you think I’m very ‘bold and 
forward’?” she said, dreamily. 

“It was your song I wanted to be sentimental 
about. I am like one ‘who through long days of 
toil’—only that doesn’t quite apply—‘and nights 
devoid of ease’—^but I can’t claim that one doesn’t 
sleep well here; it is Plattville’s specialty—like one 
who 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 109 

“ ‘Still heard in his soul the music 
Of wonderful melodies.’ ” 


^‘Those blessed old lines!” she said. ‘"Once a 
thing is music or poetry, all the hand-organs and 
elocutionists in the world cannot ruin it, can they? 
Yes; to live here, out of the world, giving up the 
world, doing good and working for others, working 

for a community as you do-” 

“I am not quite shameless,” he interrupted, 
smilingly. “I was given a life sentence for incom¬ 
petency, and IVe served five years of it, which have 
been made much happier than my deserts.” 

“No,” she persisted, “that is your way of talking 
of yourself; I know you would always ‘run yourself 
down,’ if one paid any attention to it. But to give 
up the world, to drop out of it without regret, to 
come here and do what you have done, and to live 
the life that must be so desperately dry and dull 
for a man of your sort, and yet to have the kind 
of heart that makes wonderful melodies sing in 
itself—oh!” she cried, “I say that is fine!” 

“You do not understand,” he returned, sadly, 
wishing, before her, to be unmercifully just to him¬ 
self. “I came here because I couldn’t make a living 
anywhere else. And the ‘wonderful melodies’—I 



110 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

have known you only one evening—and the melo¬ 
dies—” He rose to his feet and took a few steps 
toward the garden. “Come/’ he said. “Let me 
take you back. Let us go before I—” he finished 
with a helpless laugh. ^ 

She stood by the bench, one hand resting on it; 
she stood all in the tremulant shadow. She moved 
one step toward him, and a single, long sliver of 
light pierced the sycamores and fell upon her head. 
He gasped. 

“What was it about the melodies?” she said. 

“Nothing! I don’t know how to thank you for 
this evening that you have given me. I—I suppose 

•you are leaving to-morrow. No one ever stays here. 
” 

“What about the melodies?” 

, He gave it up. “The moon makes people in¬ 
sane!” he cried. 

“If that is true,” she returned, “then you need 
not be more afraid than I, because ‘people’ is plural. 
What were you saying about-” 

“I had heard them—in my heart.„ When I heard 
your voice to-night, I knew that it was you who 
sang them there—^had been singing them for me 
always.” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 111 

“So!” she cried, • gaily. “All that debate about 
a pretty speech!” Then, sinking before him in a 
deep courtesy, “I am beholden to you,” she said. 
“Do you think that no man ever made a little flat¬ 
tery for me before to-night?” 

At the edge of the orchard, where they could keep 
an unseen watch on the garden and the bank of the 
creek. Judge Briscoe and Mr. Todd were ensconced 
under an apple-tree, the former still armed with his 
shot-gun. When the two young people got up from 
their bench, the two men rose hastily, and then 
saimtered slowly toward them. When they met, 
Harkless shook each of them cordially by the hand, 
without seeming to know it. 

“We were coming to look for you,” explained the 
judge. “William was afraid to go home alone; 
thought some one might take him for Mr. Harkless 
and shoot him before he got into town. Can you 
come out with young Willetts in the morning, Hark¬ 
less,” he went on, “and go with the ladies to see the 
parade? And Minnie wants you to stay to dinner 
and go to the show with them in the afternoon.” 

Harkless seized his hand and shook it fervently, 
and then laughed heartily, as he accepted the invi¬ 
tation. 


in THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

At the gate, Miss Sherwood extended her hand 
to him and said politely, and with some flavor of 
mockery: ‘‘Good-night, Mr. Harkless. I do not 
leave to-morrow. I am very glad to have met you.” 

“We are going to keep her all summer if we can,” 
said Minnie, weaving her arm about her friend’s 
waist. “You’ll come in the morning?” 

“Good-night, Miss Sherwood,” he returned, hi¬ 
lariously. “It has been such a pleasure to meet 
you. Thank you so much for saving my life. It was 
very good of you indeed. Yes, in the morning. 
Good-night—good-night.” He shook hands with 
them all again, including Mj*. Todd, who was going 
with him. ^ 

He laughed most of the way home, and Mr. Todd 
walked at his side in amazement. The Herald 
Building was a decrepit frame structure on Main 
Street j it had once been a small warehouse and 
was now sadly in need of paint. Closely adjoining 
it, in a large, blank-looking yard, stood a low brick 
cottage? over which the second story of the ware¬ 
house leaned m an effect of tipsy affection that had 
reminded Harkless, when he flrst saw it, of an old 
Sunday-school book wood-cut of an inebriated 
parent imder convoy of a devoted child. The title 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA llS 


to these two buildings and the blank yard had been 
included in the purchase of the “Herald”; and the 
cottage was Harkless’s home. 

There was a light burning upstairs in the “Her¬ 
ald” office. From the street a broad, tumble-down 
stairway ran up on the outside of the building to 
the second floor, and at the stairway railing John 
turned and shook his companion warmly by the 
hand. 

“Good-night, William,” he said. “It was plucky 
of you to join in that muss, to-night. I shan’t for¬ 
get it.” 

“I jest happened to come along,” replied the 
other, drowsily; then, with a portentous yawn, he 
asked: “Ain’t ye goin’ to bed?” 

“No; Parker wouldn’t allow it.” 

“Well,” observed William, with another yawn, 
which bade fair to expose the veritable soul of him, 
“I d’know how ye stand it. It’s closte on eleven 
o’clock. Good-night.” 

John went up the steps, singing aloud: 

**For to-night we’ll merry, merry be. 

For to-night we’ll merry, merry be,” 

and stopped on the sagging platform at the top of 
the stairs and gave the moon good-night with a 


114 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

wave of the hand and friendly laughter. At that it 
suddenly struck him that he was twenty-nine years 
of age; that he had laughed a great deal that even¬ 
ing; that he had laughed and laughed over things 
not in the least humorous, like an excited schoolboy 
making his first formal call; that he had shaken 
hands with Miss Briscoe when he left her, as if he 
should never see her again; that he had taken Miss 
Sherwood’s hand twice in one very temporary part¬ 
ing; that he had shaken the judge’s hand five times, 
and William’s four! 

“Idiot!” he cried. “What has happened to me?” 
Then he shook his fist at the moon and went in to 
work—^he thought. 


CHAPTER VII 


morning: ‘‘some in rags and some in tags and 

SOME IN VELVET GOWNS” 


T he bright sun of circus-day shone into Hark- 
less’s window, and he awoke to find himself 
smiling. For a little while he lay content, 
drowsily wondering why he smiled, only knowing 
that there was something new. It was thus, as a 
boy, he had wakened on his birthday mornings, or 
on Christmas, or on the Fourth of July, drifting 
happily out of pleasant dreams into the conscious¬ 
ness of long-awaited delights that had come true, 
yet lying only half-awake in a cheerful borderland, 
leaving happiness undefined. 

The morning breeze was fluttering at his window 
blind; a honeysuckle vine tapped lightly on the 
pane. Birds were trilling, warbling, whistling. From 
the street came the rumbling of wagons, merry cries 
of greeting, and the barking of dogs. What was it 
made him feel so young and strong and light¬ 
hearted The breeze brought him the smell of 
ns 


116 THE GENTLEMAN FHOM INDIANA 

June roses, fresh and sweet with dew, and then he 
knew why he had come smiling from his dreams. 
He would go a holiday-making. With that he 
leaped out of bed, and shouted loudly: “Zen! Hello, 
Xenophon!” 

In answer, an ancient, very black darky put his 
head in at the door, his warped and wrinkled visage 
showing under his grizzled hair like charred paper 
in a fall of pine ashes. He said: “Good-mawn’, suh. 
Yessuh. Hit’s done pump’ full. Good-mawn’, suh.” 

A few moments later, the colored man, seated on 
the front steps of the cottage, heard a mighty splash¬ 
ing within, while the rafters rang with stentorian 
song: 

“He promised to buy me a bunch o’ blue ribbon, 

He promised to buy me a bunch o’ blue ribbon, 

He promised to buy me a bunch o’ blue ribbon. 

To tie up my bonny brown hair 

“Oh dear! What can the matter be? 

Oh dear! What can the matter be? 

Oh dear! What can the matter be? ^ 

Johnnie’s so long at the Fair!” 

At the sound of this complaint, delivered in a 
manly voice, the listener’s jaw dropped, and his 
mouth opened and stayed open. *'Himr he mut¬ 
tered, faintly. **SinginT 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 117 

“Wdl, the old Triangle knew the music of our tread; 

How the peaceful Seminole would tremble in his bed!” 

sang the editor. 

“I dimno huccome it,” exclaimed the old man, 
“an’ dat ain’ hyer ner dar; but, bless Gawd! de 
young man’ happy!” A thought struck him sud« 
denly, and he scratched his head. “Maybe he goin’ 
away,” he said, querulously. “What become o’ 
ole Zen.^^” The splashing ceased, but not the voice, 
which struck into a noble marching chorus. “Oh, 
my Lawd,” said the colored man, “I pray you listen 
at dat!” 

“Soldiers marching up the street. 

They keep the time; 

They look sublime! 

Hear them play Die Wacht am Rhein! 

They call them Schneider’s Band. 

Tra la la la, la!” 

The length of Main Street and all the Square 
resounded with the rattle of vehicles of every kind. 
Since earliest dawn they had been pouring into the 
village, a long procession on every country road. 
There were great red and blue farm wagons, drawn 
by splendid Clydesdales; the elders of the family on 
the front seat and on boards laid from side to side in 
front, or on chairs placed close behind, while, in the 


118 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


deep beds back of these, children tumbled in the 
straw, or peeped over the sides, rosy-cheeked and 
laughing, eyes alight with blissful anticipations. 
There were more pretentious two-seated cut-unders 
and stout buckboards, loaded down with merry¬ 
makers, four on a seat meant for two; there were 
rattle-trap phaetons and comfortable carry-alls 
drawn by steady spans; and, now and then, mule- 
teams bringing happy negroes, ready to squander 
all on the first Georgia watermelons and cider. 
Every vehicle contained heaping baskets of good 
things to eat (the previous night had been a woeful 
Bartholomew for Carlow chickens) and underneath, 
where the dogs paced faithfully, swung buckets and 
fodder for the horses, while colts innumerable trotted 
close to the maternal flanks, viewing the world with 
their big, new eyes in frisky surprise. 

Here and there the trim side-bar buggy of some 
prosperous farmer’s son, escorting his sweetheart, 
flashed along the road, the young mare stepping 
out in pride of blood to pass the line of wagons, the 
youth who held the reins, resplendent in Sunday 
best and even better, his scorched brown face glow¬ 
ing with a fine belief in the superiority of both his 
steed and his lady; the latter beaming out upon life 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 119 


and rejoicing in the light-blue ribbons on her hat, 
the light-blue ribbon around her waist, the light- 
blue, silk half-mittens on her hands, and the beautiful 
red coral necklace about her neck and the red coral 
buttons that fastened her gown in the back. 

The air was full of exhilaration; everybody was 
laughing and shouting and calling greetings; for 
Carlow County was turning out, and from far and 
near the country people came; nay, from over the 
county line, clouds of dust rising from every thor¬ 
oughfare and highway, and sweeping into town to 
herald their coming. 

Dibb Zane, the “sprinkling contractor,” had been 
at work with the town water-cart since the morning 
stars were bright, but he might as well have watered 
the streets with his tears, which, indeed, when the 
farmers began to come in, bringing their cyclones 
of dust, he drew nigh imto, after a spell of profanity 
as futile as his cart. 

“Tief wie das Meer soil deine Liebe sein,” 

hummed the editor in the cottage. His song had 
taken on a reflective tone as that of one who cons 
a problem, or musically ponders which card to play. 
He was kneeling before an old trunk in his bed¬ 
chamber. From one compartment he took a neatly 


120 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

folded pair of duck trousers and a light-gray tweed 
coat; from another, a straw hat with a ribbon of 
bright colors. They had lain in the trunk a long 
time imdisturbed; and he examined them musingly. 
He shook the coat and brushed it; then he laid the 
garments upon his bed, and proceeded to shave him¬ 
self carefully, after which he donned the white 
trousers, the gray coat, and, rummaging in the trunk 
again, found a gay pink cravat, which he fastened 
about his tall collar (also a resurrection from the 
trunk) with a pearl pin. After that he had a long, 
solemn time arranging his hair with a pair of brushes. 
When at last he was suited, and his dressing com » 
pleted, he sallied forth to breakfast. 

Xenophon stared after him as he went out of the 
gate whistling heartily. The old darky lifted his 
hands, palms outward. 

“Lan’ name, who dat!’’ he exclaimed aloud. “Who 
dat in dem pan-jingeries.^ He jine’ de circus.^^” His 
hands fell upon his knees, and he got to his feet 
rheumatically, shaking his head with foreboding. 
“Honey, honey, hit’ baid luck, baid luck sing ’fo’ 
breakfus. Trouble ’fo’ de day be done. Trouble, 
honey, gre’t trouble. Baid luck, baid luck!” 

Along the Square the passing of the editor in his 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA HI 


cool equipment evoked some gasps of astonishment; 
and Mr. Tibbs and his sister rushed from the post- 
office to stare after him. 

‘"He looks just beautiful, Solomon,” said Miss 
Tibbs. 

“But what’s the name for them kind of clothes.^” 
inquired her brother. “’Seems to me there’s a 
special way of callin’ ’em. ’Seems as if I see a pic¬ 
ture of ’em, somewheres. Wasn’t it on the cover of 
that there long-tennis box we bought and put in the 
window, and the country people thought it was a 
seining outfit.?” 

“It was a game, the catalogue said,” observed 
Miss Selina. “Wasn’t it?” 

“It was a mighty pore investment,” the post¬ 
master answered. 

As Harkless approached the hotel, a decrepit old 
man, in a vast straw hat and a linen duster much too 
large for him, came haltingly forward to meet him. 
He was Widow-Woman Wimby’s husband. And, 
as did every one else, he spoke of his wife by the 
name of her former martial companion. 

“Be’n a-lookin’ fer you, Mr. Harkless,” he said in 
a shaking spindle of a voice, as plaintive as his pale 
little eyes. “Mother Wimby, she sent some rose? 


m THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

to ye. Cynthy’s fixin’ ’em on yer table. I’m well 
as ever I am; but her, she’s too complaining to come 
in fer show-day. This morning, early, we see some 
the Cross-Roads folks pass the place towards town, 
an’ she sent me in to tell ye. Oh, I knowed ye’d 
laugh. Says she, ‘He’s too much of a man to be 
skeered,’ says she, ‘these here tall, big men always 
’low nothin’ on earth kin hurt ’em,’ says she, ‘but 
you tell him to be keerful,’ says she; an’ I see BiU 
Skillett an’ his brother on the Square lessun a half- 
an-hour ago, ’th my own eyes. I won’t keep ye 
from yer breakfast.—Eph Watts is in there, eatin’. 
He’s come back; but I guess I don’t need to warn 
ye agin’ him. He seems peaceable enough. It’s the 
other folks you got to look out fer.” 

He limped away. The editor waved his hand to 
him from the door, but the old fellow shook his 
head, and made a warning, friendly gesture with his 
arm. 

Harkless usually ate his breakfast alone, as he was 
the latest riser in Plattville. (There were days in the 
winter when he did not reach the hotel until eight 
o’clock.) This morning he found a bunch of white 
roses, still wet with dew and so fragrant that the 
whole room was fresh and sweet with their odor, 


THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 123 

prettily arranged in a bowl on the table, and, at his 
plate, the largest of all with a pin through the stem. 
He looked up, smilingly, and nodded at the red- 
haired girl. “Thank you, Charmion,” he said. 
“That’s very pretty.” 

She turned even redder than she always was, and 
answered nothing, vigorously darting her brush at 
an imaginary fly on the cloth. After several min¬ 
utes she said abruptly, “You’re welcome.” 

There was a silence, finally broken by a long, 
gasping sigh. Astonished, he looked at the girl. 
Her eyes were set unfathomably upon his pink tie; 
the wand had dropped from her nerveless hand, and 
she stood rapt and immovable. She started violently 
from her trance. “Ain’t you goin’ to finish your 
coffee.f^” she asked, plying her instrument again, and, 
bending over him slightly, whispered: “Say, Eph 
Watts is over there behind you.” 

At a table in a far corner of the room a large 
gentleman in a brown frock coat was quietly eating 
his breakfast and reading the “Herald.” He was 
of an ornate presence, though entirely neat. A 
sumptuous expanse of linen exhibited itself between 
the lapels of his low-cut waistcoat, and an inch of 
bediamonded breastpin glittered there, like an ice- 


124 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

ledge on a snowy mountain side. He had a steady, 
blue eye and a dissipated, iron-gray mustache. 
This personage was Mr. Ephraim Watts, who, fol¬ 
lowing a calling more fashionable in the eighteenth 
century than in the latter decades of the nineteenth, 
had shaken the dust of Carlow from his feet some 
three years previously, at the strong request of the 
authorities. The “Herald” had been particularly 
insistent upon his deportation, and, in the local 
phrase, Harkless had “run him out of town.” Per¬ 
haps it was because the “Herald’s” opposition (as 
the editor explained at the time) had been merely 
moral and impersonal, and the editor had always 
confessed to a liking for the unprofessional qualities 
of Mr. Watts, that there was but slight embarrass¬ 
ment when the two gentlemen met to-day. His 
breakfast finished, Harkless went over to the other 
and extended his hand. Cynthia held her breath 
and clutched the back of a chair. However, Mr. 
Watts made no motion toward his well-known 
hip pocket. Instead, he rose, flushed slightly, and 
accepted the hand offered him. 

“I’m glad to see you, Mr. Watts,” said the jour¬ 
nalist, cordially. “Also, if you are running with 
the circus and calculate on doing business here 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 125 


to-day, I’ll have to see that you are fired out of 
town before noon. How are you? You’re looking 
extremely well.” 

“Mr. Harkless,” answered Watts, “I cherijsh no 
hard feelings, and I never said but what you done 
exactly right when I left, three years ago. No, sir; 
I’m not here in a professional way at all, and I 
don’t want to be molested. I’ve connected myseK 
with an oil company, and I’m down here to look 
over the ground. It beats poker and fan-tan hollow, 
though there ain’t as many chances in favor of the 
dealer, and in oil it’s the farmer that gets the rake-off. 
I’ve come back, but in an enterprising spirit this 
time, to open up a new field and shed light and 
money in Carlow. They told me never to show my 
face here again, but if you say I stay, I guess I 
stay. I always was sure there was oil in the county, 
and I want to prove it for everybody’s benefit. 
Is it all right?” 

“My dear fellow,” laughed the young man, 
shaking the gambler’s hand again, “it is all right. 
I have always been sorry I had to act against you. 
Everything is all right! Stay and bore to Corea if 
you like. Did ever you see such glorious weather?” 

“I’ll let vou in on some shares,” Watts called 


126 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

after him as he turned away. He nodded in reply 
and was leaving the room when Cynthia detained 
him by a flourish of the fly-brush. “Say,” she said, 
—she always called him “Say”—“You’ve forgot 
your flower.” 

He came back, and thanked her. “Will you pin 
it on for me, Charmion?” 

“I don’t know what call you got to speak to me 
out of my name,” she responded, looking at the 
floor moodily. 

“Why?” he asked, surprised. 

“I don’t see why you want to make fun of me.” 

“I beg your pardon, Cynthia,” he said gravely. 
“I didn’t mean to do that. I haven’t been con¬ 
siderate. I didn’t think you’d be displeased. I’m 
very sorry. Won’t you pin it on my coat?” 

Her face was lifted in grateful pleasure, and she 
began to pin the rose to his lapel. Her hands were 
large and red and trembled. She dropped the 
flower, and, saying huskily, “I don’t know as I 
could do it right,” seized violently upon a pile of 
dishes and hurried from the room. 

Harkless rescued the rose, pinned it on his coat 
himself, and, observing internally, for the hundredth 
time, that the red-haired waitress was the queerest 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA m 


creature in the village, set forth gaily upon his 
holiday. 

When he reached the brick house on the pike he 
discovered a gentleman sunk in an easy and con¬ 
templative attitude in a big chair behind the veranda 
railing. At the click of the gate the lounger rose 
and disclosed the stalwart figure and brown, smil¬ 
ing, handsome face of Mr. Lige Willetts, an ha¬ 
bitual devotee of Minnie Briscoe, and the most 
eligible bachelor of Carlow. “The ladies will be 
down right off,” he said, greeting the editor’s finery 
with a perceptible agitation and the editor himself 
with a friendly shake of the hand. “Mildy says to 
wait out here.” 

But immediately there was a faint rustling within 
the house: the swish of draperies on the stairs, a 
delicious whispering when light feet descend, tap¬ 
ping, to hearts that beat an answer, the telegraphic 
message, “We come! We come! We are near! 
We are near!” Lige Willetts stared at Harkless. 
He had never thought the latter good-looking until 
he saw him step to the door to take Miss Sher¬ 
wood’s hand and say in a strange, low, tense voice, 
“Good-morning,” as if he were announcing, at the 


128 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

least: “Every one in the world except us two, died 
last night. It is a solemn thing, but I am very 
happy.” 

They walked, Minnie and Mr. Willetts a little 
distance in front of the others. Harkless could not 
have told, afterward, whether they rode, or walked, 
or floated on an air-ship to the court-house. All 
he knew distinctly was that a divinity in a pink 
shirt waist, and a hat that was woven of gauzy 
cloud by mocking fairies to make him stoop hideously 
to see under it, dwelt for the time on earth and 
was at his side, dazzling him in the morning sun¬ 
shine. Last night the moon had lent her a silvery 
glamour; she had something of the ethereal white¬ 
ness of night-dews in that watery hght, a nymph 
to laugh from a sparkling fountain, at the moon or, 
as he thought, remembering her courtesy for his 
pretty speech, perhaps a little lady of King Louis’s 
court, wandering down the years from Fontainebleau 
and appearing to clumsy mortals sometimes, of a 
June night when the moon was in their heads. 

But to-day she was of the clearest color, a pretty 
girl, whose gray eyes twinkled to his in gay com¬ 
panionship. He marked how the sunshine was 
spun into the fair shadows of her hair and seemed 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 129 


Itself to catch a lustre, rather than to impart it, 
and the light of the June day drifted through the 
gauzy hat, touching her face with a delicate and 
tender flush that came and went like the vibrating 
pink of early dawn. She had the divinest straight 
nose, tip-tilted the faintest, most alluring trifle, and 
a dimple cleft her chin, 'The deadliest maelstrom in 
the world!” He thrilled through and through. He 
had been only vaguely conscious of the dimple in 
the night. It was not until he saw her by dayhght 
that he really knew it was there. 

The village hummed with life before them. They 
walked through shimmering airs, sweeter to breathe 
than nectar is to drink. She caught a butterfly, 
basking on a jimson weed, and, before she let it 
go, held it out to him in her hand. It was a white 
butterfly. He asked which was the butterfly. 

“Bravo!” she said, tossing the captive craft 
above their heads and watching the small sails 
catch the breeze; “And so you can make little 
flatteries in the morning, too. It is another courtesy 
you should be having from me, if it weren’t for the 
dustiness of it. Wait till we come to the board walk.” 

She had some big, pink roses at her waist. 
the meantime,” he answered, indicating these, “I 


130 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 
know very well a lad that would be blithe to accept 
a pretty token of any lady’s high esteem.” 

‘‘But you have one, already, a very beautiful 
one.” She gave him a genial up-and-down glance 
from head to foot, half quizzical, but so quick he 
almost missed it. And then he was glad he had 
found the straw hat with the youthful ribbon, and 
all his other festal vestures. “And a very becoming 
flower a white rose is,” she continued, “though I 
am a bold girl to be blarneying with a young gentle¬ 
man I met no longer ago than last night.” 

“But why shouldn’t you blarney with a gentle¬ 
man, when you began by saving his life.^” 

“Or, rather, when the gentleman had the polite¬ 
ness to gallop about the county with me tuckec 
under his arm?” She stood still and laughed softly, 
but consummately, and her eyes closed tight with 
the mirth of it. She had taken one of the roses 
from her waist, and, as she stood, holding it by the 
long stem, its petals lightly pressed her lips. 

“You may have it—in exchange,” she said. He 
bent down to her, and she began to fasten the pink 
rose in place of the white one on his coat. She did 
not ask him, directly or indirectly, who had put 
the white one there for him, because she knew by 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 131 

lie way it was pinned that he had done it himself. 
*Who is it that ev’ry morning brings me these 
bvely flow’rs?” she burlesqued, as he bent over her. 

“ ‘JVIr. Wimby,’ ” he returned. ‘T will point him 
8ut to you. You must see him, and, also, Mr. 
Bodeffer, the oldest inhabitant—and Grossest.’’ 

“Will you present them to me.^” 

“No; they might talk to you and take some of 
my time with you away from me.” Her eyes 
sparkled into his for the merest fraction of a second, 
and she laughed half mockingly. Then she dropped 
his lapel and they proceeded. She did not put the 
white rose in her belt, but carried it. 

The Square was heaving with a jostling, good- 
natured, happy, and constantly increasing crowd 
that overflowed on Main Street in both directions; 
and the good nature of this crowd was augmented 
in the ratio that its size increased. The streets 
were a confusion of many colors, and eager faces 
filled every window opening on Main Street or the 
Square. Since nine o’clock all those of the court¬ 
house had been occupied, and here most of the dam¬ 
sels congregated to enjoy the spectacle of the parade, 
and their swains attended, gallantly posting them¬ 
selves at coignes of less vantage behind the ladies. 


132 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


Some of the faces that peeped from the dark, old 
court-house windows were pretty, and some of 
them were not pretty; but nearly all of them were 
rosy-cheeked, and all were pleasant to see because 
of the good cheer they showed. Some of the gal¬ 
lants affected the airy and easy, entertaining the 
company with badinage a,nd repartee; some were 
openly bashful. Now and then one of the latter, 
after long deliberation, constructed a laborious 
compliment for his inamorata, and, after advancing 
and propounding half of it, again retired into him¬ 
self, smit with a blissful palsy. Nearly all of them 
conversed in tones that might have indicated that 
they were separated from each other by an acre 
lot or two. 

Here and there, along the sidewalk below, a 
father worked his way through the throng, a licorice- 
bedaubed cherub on one arm, his coat (borne with 
long enough) on the other; followed by a mother 
with the other children hanging to her skirts and 
tagging exasperatingly behind, holding red and 
blue toy balloons and delectable batons of spiral- 
striped peppermint in tightly closed, sadly sticky 
fingers. 

A thousand cries rent the air; the strolling 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 133 

mountebanks and gypsying booth-merchants; the 
peanut vendors; the boys with paim-leaf fans for 
sale; the candy sellers; the popcorn peddlers; the 
Italian with the toy balloons that float like a cluster 
of colored bubbles above the heads of the crowd, 
and the balloons that wail like a baby; the red- 
lemonade man, shouting in the shrill voice that 
reaches everywhere and endures forever: “Lemo! 
Lemo! Ice-cole lemo! Five cents, a nickel, a half- 
a-dime, the twentiethpotofadollah! Lemo! Ice-cole 
.^emo!”—all the vociferating harbingers of the circus 
crying their wares. Timid youth, in shoes covered 
with dust through which the morning polish but 
dimly shone, and unalterably hooked by the arm to 
blushing maidens, bought recklessly of peanuts, of 
candy, of popcorn, of all known sweetmeats, per¬ 
chance; and forced their way to the lemonade 
stands; and there, all shyly, silently sipped the 
crimson-stained ambrosia. Everywhere the hawkers 
dinned, and everywhere was heard the plaintive 
squawk of the toy balloon. 

But over all rose the nasal cadence of the Cheap 
John, reeking oratory from his big wagon on the 
corner: “Walk up, walk up, walk up, ladies and 
gents! Here we are! Here we are! Make hay while 


134 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

we gather the moss. Walk up. one and all. Hert 
I put this solid gold ring, sumptuous and goldei^ 
eighteen carats, eighteen golden carats of th« 
priceless mother of metals, toiled fer on the wiW 
Pacific slope, eighteen garnteed, I put this goldei 
ring, rich and golden, in the package with the hang* 
kacheef, the elegant and blue-ruled note-paper, self¬ 
writing pens, pencil and penholder. Who takes th< 
lot? Who takes it, ladies and gents?” 

His tongue curled about his words; he seemed t® 
love them. “Fer a. quat-of-a-dollah! Don’t turn 
away, young man—you feller in the green necktie, 
there. We all see the young lady on your arm is 
a-langrishing fer the golden ring and the package. 
Faint heart never won fair wummin’. There you 
are, sir, and you’ll never regret it. Go—and be 
happy! Now, who’s the next man to git solid with 
his girl fer a quat-of-a-dollah? Life is a mysterus 
and unviolable shadder, my friends; who kin read its 
orgeries? To-day we are here—but to-morrow we 
may be in jail. Only a quat-of-a-dollah! We are 
Seventh-Day Adventists, ladies and gents, a-givin’ 
away our belongings in the awful face of Michael, 
fer a quat-of-a-dollah. The same price fer each-an- 
devery individual, lady and gent, man, wummin. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 135 


wife and child, and happiness to one and all fer a 
quat-of-a-dollah!” 

Down the middle of the street, kept open between 
the waiting crowd, ran barefoot boys, many of 
whom had not slept at home, but had kept vigil 
in the night mists for the coming of the show, and, 
having seen the muffled pageant arrive, swathed, 
and with no pomp and panoply, had returned to 
town, rioting through jewelled cobwebs in the morn¬ 
ing fields, happy in the pride of knowledge of what 
went on behind the scenes. To-night, or to-morrow, 
the runaways would face a woodshed reckoning 
with outraged ancestry; but now they caracoled 
in the dust with no thought of the grim deeds to 
be done upon them. 

In the court-house yard, and so sinning in the 
very eye of the law, two swarthy, shifty-looking 
gentlemen were operating (with some greasy walnut 
shells and a pea) what the fanciful or unsophisti¬ 
cated might have been pleased to call a game of 
chance; and the most intent spectator of the group 
around them was Mr. James Bardlock, the Town 
Marshal. He was simply and unofficially and ear¬ 
nestly interested. Thus the eye of Justice may not 
be said to have winked upon the nefariousness now 


136 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

under its vision; it gazed with strong curiosity, an 
itch to dabble, and (it must be admitted) a growing- 
hope of profit. The game was so direct and the 
player so sure. Several countrymen had won small 
sums, and one, a charmingly rustic stranger, with a 
peculiar accent (he said that him and his goil should 
now have a smoot’ old time off his winninks—though 
the lady was not manifested), had won twenty-five 
dollars with no trouble at all. The two operators 
seemed depressed, declaring the luck against them 
and the Plattville people too brilliant at the game. 

It was wonderful how the young couples worked 
their way arm-in-arm through the thickest crowds, 
never separating. Even at the lemonade stands 
they drank holding the glasses in their outer hands 
—such are the sacrifices demanded by etiquette. 
But, observing the gracious outpouring of fortune 
upon the rustic with the rare accent, a youth in a 
green tie disengaged his arm—for the first time in 
two hours—from that of a girl upon whose finger 
there shone a ring, sumptuous and golden, and, 
conducting her to a corner of the yard, bade her 
remain there until he returned. He had to speak 
to Hartly Bowlder, he explained. 

Then he plunged, red-faced and excited, into the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 137 


circle about the shell manipulators, and offered to 
lay a wager. 

“Hoh on there, Hen Fentriss,” thickly objected 
a flushed young man beside him, “iss my turn.” 

‘T’m first. Hartley,” returned the other. “You 
can hold yer bosses a minute, I reckon.” 

“Plenty fer each and all, chents,” interrupted one 
of the shell-men. “Place yer spondulicks on de 
little ball. W’ich is de next lucky one to win our 
money Ghent bets four sixty-five he seen de little 
ball go under de middle shell. Up she comes! Dis 
time we wins; Plattville can’t win every time. Who’s 
de next chent.^” 

Fentriss edged slowly out of the circle, abashed, 
and with rapidly whitening cheeks. He paused for 
a moment, outside, slowly realizing that all his 
money had gone in one wild, blind whirl—‘the 
money he had earned so hard and saved so hard, to 
make a holiday for his sweetheart and himself. He 
stole one glance around the building to where a 
patient figure waited for him. Then he fled down 
a side alley and soon was out upon the country road, 
tramping soddenly homeward through the dust, his 
chin sunk in his breast and his hands clenched tight 
at his sides. Now and then he stopped and bitterly 


138 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

hurled a stone at a piping bird on a fence, or gay 
Bob White in the fields. At noon the patient figure 
was still waiting in the corner of the court-house 
yard, meekly twisting the golden ring upon her 
finger. 

But the flushed young man who had spoken 
thickly to her deserter drew an envied roll of bank- 
bills from his pocket and began to bet with tipsy 
caution, while the circle about the gamblers watched 
with fervid interest, especially Mr. Bardlock, Town 
Marshal. 

From far up Main Street came the cry “She’s 
a-comin’! She’s a-comin’!” and, this announcement 
of the parade proving only one of a dozen false 
alarms, a thousand discussions took place over old- 
iashioned silver timepieces as to when “she” was 
really due. Schofields’ Henry was much appealed to 
as an arbiter in these discussions, from a sense of 
his having a good deal to do with time in a general 
iort of way; and thus Schofields’ came to be re¬ 
minded that it was getting on toward ten o’clock, 
whereas, in the excitement of festival, he had not 
yet struck nine. This, rushing forthwith to do., 
he did; and, in the elation of the moment, seven oi 
eight besides. Miss Helen Sherwood was looldng 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 139 


down on the mass of shifting color from a second- 
story window—whither many an eye was upturned 
in wonder—and she had the pleasure of seeing 
Schofields’ emerge on the steps beneath her, when 
the bells had done, and heard the cheers (led by 
Mr. Martin) with which the laughing crowd greeted 
his appearance after the performance of his feat. 

She turned beamingly to Harkless. “What a 
family it is!” she laughed. “Just one big, jolly 
family. I didn’t know people could be like this 
until I came to Plattville.” 

“That is the word for it,” he answered, resting his 
hand on the casement beside her. “I used to think 
it was desolate, but that was long ago.” He leaned 
from the window’ to look down. In his dark cheek 
was a glow Carlow folk had never seen there; and 
somehow he seemed less thin and tired; indeed, he 
did not seem tired at all, by far the contrary; and he 
carried himself upright (when he was not stooping 
to see under the hat), though not as if he thought 
about it. “I believe they are the best people I 
know,” he went on. “Perhaps it is because they 
have been so kind to me; but they are kind to each 
other, too; kind, good people-” 

“I know,” she said, nodding— a, flower on the 



140 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

gauzy hat set to vibrating in a tantalizing way. ‘T 
know. There are fat women who rock and rock 
on piazzas by the sea, and they speak of country 
people as the ‘lower classes.’ How happy this big 
family is in not knowing it is the lower classes!” 

“We haven’t read Nordau down here,” said John. 
“Old Tom Martin’s favorite work is ‘The Descent 
of Man.’ Miss Tibbs admires Tupper, and ‘Beu¬ 
lah,’ and some of us possess the works of E. P. 
Roe—and why not.^” 

“Yes; what of it,” she returned, “since you es¬ 
cape Nordau? I think the conversation we hear 
from the other windows is as amusing and quite as 
loud as most of that I hear in Rouen during the 
winter; and Rouen, you know, is just like any other 
big place nowadays, though I suppose there are 
Philadelphians, for instance, who would be slow to 
believe a statement like that.” 

“Oh, but they are not all of Philadelphia-” 

He left the sentence, smilingly. 

“And yet somebody said, ‘The further West I 
travel the more convinced I am the Wise Men came 
from the East.’ ” 

“Yes,” he answered. “ ‘From’ is the important 
word in that.” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 141 

“It was a girl from Southeast Cottonbridge, 
Massachusetts,” said Helen, “who heard I was 
from Indiana and asked me if I didn’t hate to live 
so far away from things.” There was a pause, while 
she leaned out of the window with her face aside 
from him. Then she remarked carelessly, “I met 
her at Winter Harbor.” 

“Do you go to Winter Harbor?” he asked. 

“We have gone there every summer until this 
one, for years. Have you friends who go there?” 

“I had—once. There was a classmate of mine 
from Rouen-” 

“What was his name? Perhaps I know him.” 
She stole a glance at him. His face had fallen into 
sad lines, and he looked like the man who had 
come up the aisle with the Hon. Kedge Halloway. 
A few moments before he had seemed another per¬ 
son entirely. 

“He’s forgotten me, I dare say. I haven’t seen 
him for seven years; and that’s a long time, you 
know. Besides, he’s ‘out in the world,’ where 
remembering is harder. Here in Plattville we don’t 
forget.” 

“Were you ever at Winter Harbor?” 

“I was—once. I spent a very happy day there 


142 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 
long ago, when you must have been a little girl. 
Were you there in-” 

“Listen!” she cried. “The procession is com-' 
ing. Look at the crowd!” The parade had seized 
a psychological moment. 

There was a fanfare of trumpets in the east. Lines 
of people rushed for the street, and, as one looked 
down on the straw hats and sunbonnets and many 
kinds of finer head apparel, tossing forward, they 
seemed like surf sweeping up the long beaches. 

She was coming at last. The boys whooped in 
the middle of the street; some tossed their arms to 
heaven, others expressed their emotion by somer¬ 
saults; those most deeply moved walked on their 
hands. In the distance one saw, over the heads of 
the multitude, tossing banners and the moving 
crests of triumphal cars, where “cohorts w^ere shin¬ 
ing in purple and gold.” She was coming. After all 
the false alarms and disappointments, she was 
coming! 

There was another fiourish of music. Immedi¬ 
ately all the band gave sound, and then, with blare 
of brass and the crash of drums, the glory of the 
parade burst upon Plattville. Glory in the utmost! 
The resistless impetus of the march-time music: the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 143 

flare of royal banners, of pennons on the breeze; the 
smiling of beautiful Court Ladies and great, silken 
Nobles; the swaying of howdahs on camel and ele¬ 
phant, and the awesome shaking of the earth beneath 
the elephant’s feet, and the gleam of his small but 
devastating eye (every one declared he looked the 
alarmed Mr. Snoddy full in the face as he passed, 
and Mr. Snoddy felt not at all reassured when Tom 
Martin severely hinted that it was with the threaten¬ 
ing glance of a rival); then the badinage of the clown, 
creaking along in his donkey cart; the terrific reck¬ 
lessness of the spangled hero who was drawn by 
in a cage with two striped tigers; the spirit of the 
prancing steeds that drew the rumbling chariots, 
and the grace of the helmeted charioteers; the splen¬ 
dor of the cars and the magnificence of the paintings 
with which they were adorned; the ecstasy of all 
this glittering, shining, gorgeous pageantry needed 
even more than walking on your hands to express. 

Last of all came the tooting calliope, followed by 
swarms of boys as it executed, ‘‘Wait till the clouds 
roll by, Jennie” with infinite dash and gusto. 

When it was gone. Miss Sherwood’s intent gaze 
relaxed—she had been looking on as eagerly as any 
child,—and she turned to speak to Harkless and dis- 


144 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

covered that he was no longer in the room; instead, 
she found Minnie and Mr. Willetts, whom he had 
summoned from another window. 

“He was called away,” explained Lige. “He 
thought he’d be back before the parade was over, 
and said you were enjoying it so much he didn’t 
want to speak to you.” 

“Called away.^” she said, inquiringly. 

Minnie laughed. “Oh, everybody sends for Mr. 
Harkless.” 

“It was a farmer, name of Bowlder,” added Mr. 
Willetts. “His son Hartley’s drinking again, and 
there ain’t any one but Harkless can do anything 
with him. You let him tackle a sick man to nurse, 
or a tipsy one to handle, and I tell you,” Mr. Willetts 
went on with enthusiasm, “he is at home. It beats 
me,—and lots of people don’t think college does a 
man any good! Why, the way he cured old Fis-” 

“See!” cried Minnie, loudly, pointing out of the 
window. “Look down there. Something’s hap¬ 
pened.” 

There was a swirl in the crowd below. Men 
were running around a corner of the court-house, 
and the women and children were harking after. 
They went so fast, and there were so many of them. 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 145 
that immediately that whole portion of the yard 
became a pushing, tugging, pulling, squirming jam 
of people. 

“It’s on the other side,” said Lige. “We can see 
from the hall window. Come quick, before these 
other folks fill it up.” 

They followed him across the building, and looked 
down on an agitated swarm of faces. Five men 
were standing on the entrance steps to the door 
below, and the crowd was thickly massed beyond, 
leaving a little semicircle clear about the steps. 
Those behind struggled to get closer, and leaped in 
the air to catch a glimpse of what was going on, 
Harkless stood alone on the top step, his hand rest¬ 
ing on the shoulder of the pale and contrite and 
sobered Hartley. In the clear space, Jim Bardlock 
was standing with sheepishly hanging head, and 
between him and Harkless were the two gamblers of 
the walnut shells. The journalist held in his hand 
the implements of their profession. 

“Give it all up,” he was saying in his steady 
voice. “You’ve taken eighty-six dollars from this 
boy. Hand it over.” 

The men began to edge closer to the crowd, giving 
little, swift, desperate, searching looks from left to 


146 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

right, and right to left, moving nervously about, 
like weasels in a trap. “Close up there tight,” said 
Harkless, sharply. “Don’t let them out.” 

“W’y can’t we git no square treatment here?’^ 
one of the gamblers whined; but his eyes, blazing 
with rage, belied the plaintive passivity of his tone. 
“We been running no skin. W’y d’ye say we gotter 
give up our own money You gotter prove it was 
a skin. We risked our money fair.” 

“Prove it! Come up here, Eph Watts. Friends,” 
the editor turned to the crowd, smiling, “friends, 
here’s a man we ran out of town once, because he 
knew too much about things of this sort. He’s 
come back to us again and he’s here to stay. He’ll 
give us an object-lesson on the shell game.” 

“It’s pretty simple,” remarked Mr. Watts. “The 
best way is to pick up the ball with your second 
finger and the back part of your thumb as you pre- 
tend to lay the shell down over it: this way.” He 
illustrated, and showed several methods of manipu¬ 
lation, with professional sang-froid; and as he made 
plain the easy swindle by which many had been 
duped that morning, there arose an angry and 
threatening murmur. 

“You all see,” said Harkless, raising his voice a 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 147 

little, “what a simple cheat it is—and old as 
Pharaoh. Yet a lot of you stood around and lost 
your own money, and stared like idiots, and let 
Hartley Bowlder lose eighty-odd dollars on a shell 
racket, and not one of you lifted a hand. How hard 
did you work for what these two cheap crooks took 
from you.^ Ah!” he cried, “it is because yon were 
greedy that they robbed you so easily. You know 
it’s true. It’s when you want to get something for 
nothing that the ‘confidence men’ steal the money 
you sweat for and make the farmer a laughing 
stock. And you, Jim Bardlock, Town Marshal!— 
you, who confess that you ‘went in the game sixty 
cents’ worth, yourself’—” His eyes were lit with 
wrath as he raised his accusing hand and levelled it 
at the unhappy municipal. 

The Town Marshal smiled uneasily and deprecat- 
ingly about him, and, meeting only angry glances, 
hearing only words of condemnation, he passed his 
hand unsteadily over his fat mustache, shifted from 
one leg to the other and back again, looked up, 
looked down, and then, an amiable and pleasure 
loving man, beholding nothing but accusation ana 
anger in heaven and earth, and wishing nothing 
more than to sink into the waters under the earth, 


148 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


but having no way of reaching them, finding his 
troubles quite unbearable, and unable to meet the 
manifold eye of man, he sought relief after the 
unsagacious fashion of a larger bird than he. His 
burly form underwent a series of convulsions not 
unlike sobs, and he shut his eyes tightly and held 
them so, presenting a picture of misery unequalled 
in the memory of any spectator. Harkless’s out¬ 
stretched hand began to shake. “You!” he tried 
to continue—“you, a man elected to-” 

There came from the crov/d the sound of a sad, 
high-keyed voice, drawling: “That’s a nice vest 
Jim’s got on, but it ain’t hardly the feathers fitten 
for an ostrich, is it.^” 

The editor’s gravity gave way; he broke into a 
ringing laugh and turned again to the shell-men. 
“Give up the boy’s money. Hurry.” 

“Step down here and git it,” said the one who 
had spoken. 

There was a turbulent motion in the crowd, and 
a cry arose, “Run ’em out! Ride ’em on a rail! 
Tar and feathers! Run ’em out o’ town!” 

“I wouldn’t dilly-dally long if I were you,” said 
Harkless, and his advice seemed good to the shell- 
men. A roll of bills, which he counted and turned 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 149 


over to the elder Bowlder, was sullenly placed in his 
hand. The fellow who had not yet spoken clutched 
the journalist’s sleeve with his dirty hand. 

“We hain’t done wit’ youse,” he said, hoarsely. 
“Don’t belief it, not fer a minute, see.^” 

The Town Marshal opened his eyes briskly, and 
placing a hand on each of the gamblers, said: “I 
hereby do arrest your said persons, Vnd declare you 
my prisoners.” The cry rose again, louder: “Run 
’em out! String ’em up! Hang them! Hang 
them!” and a forward rush was made. 

“This way, Jim. Be quick,” said Harkless, 
quietly, bending down and jerldng one of the 
gamblers half-way up the steps. “Get through the 
hall to the other side and then run them to the 
lock-up. No one will stop you that way. Watts 
and I will hold this door.” Bardlock hustled his 
prisoners through the doorway, and the crowd 
pushed up the steps, while Harkless struggled to 
keep the vestibule clear until Watts got the double 
doors closed. “Stand back, here!” he cried; “it’s 
all over. Don’t be foolish. The law is good enough 
for us. Stand back, will you!” 

He was laughing a little, shoving them back with 
open hand and elbow, when a small, compact group 


150 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


of men suddenly dashed up the steps together, and a 
heavy stick swung out over their heads. A straw 
hat with a gay ribbon sailed through the air. The 
journalist’s long arms went out swiftly from his body 
in several directions, the hands not open, but 
clenched and hard. The next instant he and Mr. 
Watts stood alone on the steps, and a man with a 
bleeding, blaspheming mouth dropped his stick and 
tried to lose himself in the crowd. Mr. Watts was 
returning something he had not used to his hip- 
pocket. 

“Prophets of Israel!” exclaimed William Todd, 
ruefully, “it wasn’t Eph Watts’s pistol. Did you 
see Mr. Harkless.^ I was up on them steps when 
he begun. I don’t believe he needs as much takin’ 
care of as we think.” 

“Wasn’t it one of them Cross-Roads devils that 
knocked his hat off.?” asked Judd Bennett. “I 
thought I see Bob Skillett run up with a club.” 

Harkless threw open the doors behind him; the 
hall was empty. “You may come in now,” he said. 
“This isn’t my court-house.” 


CHAPTER Vin 


GLAD afternoon: THE GIRL BY THE BLUE 
TENT-POLE 


T hey walked slowly back along the pike 
toward the brick house. The white-ruffed 
fennel reached up its dusty yellow heads 
to touch her skirts as she passed, and then drooped, 
satisfied, against the purple iron-weed at the road¬ 
side. In the noonday silence no cricket chirped nor 
locust raised its lorn monotone; the tree shadows 
mottled the road with blue, and the level fields 
seemed to pant out a dazzling breath, the trans¬ 
parent “heat-waves” that danced above the low 
corn and green wheat. 

He was stooping very much as they walked; he 
wanted to be told that he could look at her for 
a thousand years. Her face was rarely and exqui¬ 
sitely modelled, but, perhaps, just now the salient 
characteristic of her beauty (for the salient charac¬ 
teristic seemed to be a different thing at different 
times) was the coloring, a delicate glow under the 
white skin, that bewitched him in its seeming a 


152 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

reflection of the rich benediction of the noonday 
sun that blazed overhead. 

Once he had thought the way to the Briscoe 
homestead rather a long walk; but now the distance 
sped malignantly; and strolled they never so slow, it 
was less than a “young bird’s flutter from a wood.” 
With her acquiescence he rolled a cigarette, and she 
began to hum lightly the air of a song, a song of an 
ineffably gentle, slow movement. 

That, and a reference of the morning, and, per¬ 
haps, the smell of his tobacco mingling with the 
fragrance of her roses, awoke again the keen remi¬ 
niscence of the previous night within him. Clearly 
outlined before him rose the high, green slopes 
and cool cliff-walls of the coast of Maine, while 
his old self lazily watched the sharp little waves 
through half-closed lids, the pale smoke of his 
cigarette blowing out under the rail of ^a waxen 
deck where he lay cushioned. And again a woman 
pelted his face with handfuls of rose-petals and 
cried: “Up lad and at ’em! Yonder is Winter 
Harbor.” Again he sat in the oak-raftered Casino, 
breathless with pleasure, and heard a young girl sing 
the “Angel’s Serenade,” a young girl who looked 
so bravely unconscious of the big, hushed crowd 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 153 


that listened, looked so pure and bright and gentle 
and good, that he had spoken of her as “Sir Gala¬ 
had’s little sister.’' He recollected he had been 
much taken with this child; but he had not thought 
of her from that time to this, he supposed; had 
almost forgotten her. No! Her face suddenly stood 
out to his view as though he saw her with his 
physical eye—a sweet and vivacious child’s face 
with light-brown hair and gray eyes and a short 
upper lip. . . . And the voice. . . . 

He stopped short and struck his palms together. 
“You are Tom Meredith’s little cousin!” 

“The Great Harkless!” she answered, and stretched 
out her hand to him. 

“I remember you!” 

“Isn’t it thne?” 

“Ah, but I never forgot you,” he cried. “I 
thought I had. I didn’t know who it was I was 
remembering. I thought it was fancy, and it was 
memory. I never forgot your voice, singing—and 
I remembered your face too; though I thought I 
didn’t.” He drew a deep breath. ''That was 
why-” 

“Tom Meredith has not forgotten you,” she said, 
as he paused. 



154 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


“Would you mind shaking hands once more?” 
he asked. 

She gave him her hand again. “With all my 
heart. Why?” 

“I’m making a record at it. Thank you.” 

“They called me ‘Sir Galahad’s little sister’ all 
one summer because the Great John Harkless called 
me that. You danced with me in the evening.” 
“Did I?” 

“Ah,” she said, shaking her head, “you were too 
busy being in love with Mrs. Van Skuyt to remember 
a waltz with only me! I was allowed to meet you 
as a reward for singing my very best, and you— 
you bowed with the indulgence of a grandfather, 
and asked me to dance.” 

“Like a grandfather? How young I was then! 
How time changes us!” 

“I’m afraid my conversation did not make a great 
impression upon you,” she continued. 

“But it did. I am remembering very fast. If 
you will wait a moment, I will tell you some of the 
things you said.” 

The girl laughed merrily. Whenever she laughed 
he realized that it was becoming terribly difficult 
not to tell her how adorable she was. “I wouldn’t 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 155 

risk it, if I were you,” she warned him, “because I 
didn’t speak to you at all. I shut my lips tight and 
trembled all over every bit of the time I was dancing 
with you. I did not sleep that night, because I was 
so unhappy, wondering what the Great Harkless 
w^ould think of me. I knew he thought me unutter¬ 
ably stupid because I couldn’t talk to him. I 
wanted to send him word that I knew I had bored 
him. I couldn’t bear for him not to know that I 
knew I had. But he was not thinking of me in any 
way. He had gone to sea again in a big boat, the 
ungrateful pirate, cruising with Mrs. Van Skuyt.” 

“How time does change us!” said John. “You 
are wrong, though; I did think of you; I have 
aJ-” 

“Yes,” she interrupted, tossing her head in airy 
travesty of the stage coquette, “you think so—I 
mean you say so—now. Away with you and your 
blarneying!” 

And so they went through the warm noontide, 
and little he cared for the heat that wilted the fat 
mullein leaves and made the barefoot boy, who 
passed by, skip gingerly through the burning dust 
with anguished mouth and watery eye. Little he 


156 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 
knew of the locust that suddenly whirred his mills 
of shrillness in the maple-tree, and sounded so hot, 
hot, hot; or those others that railed at the country 
quiet from the dim shade around the brick house; or 
even the rain-crow that sat on the fence and swore 
to them in the face of a sunny sky that they should 
see rain ere the day were done. 

Little the young man recked of what he ate at 
Judge Briscoe’s good noon dinner: chicken wing 
and young roas’n’-ear; hot rolls as light as the fluff 
of a summer cloudlet; and honey and milk; and 
apple-butter flavored like spices of Arabia; and 
fragrant, flaky cherry-pie; and cool, rich, yellow 
cream. Lige Willetts was a lover, yet he said he 
asked no better than to just go on eating that cherry- 
pie till a sweet death overtook him; but railroad 
sandwiches and restaurant chops might have been 
set before Harkless for all the difference it would 
have made to him. 

At no other time is a man’s feeling of companion¬ 
ship with a woman so strong as when he sits at table 
with her—not at a “decorated” and becatered and 
bewaitered table, but at a homely, appetizing, whole¬ 
some home table like old Judge Briscoe’s. The 
very essence of the thing is domesticity, and the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 157 


implication is utter confidence and liking. There are 
few greater dangers for a bachelor. An insinuating 
imp perches on his shoulder, and, softly tickhng the 
bachelor’s ear with the feathers of an arrow-shaft, 
whispers: “Pretty nice, isn’t it, eh.^ Rather pleas¬ 
ant to have that girl sitting there, don’t you think? 
Enjoy having her notice your butter-plate was 
empty? Think it exhilarating to hand her those 
rolls? Looks nice, doesn’t she? Says ‘Thank you’ 
rather prettily? Makes your lonely breakfast seem 
mighty dull, doesn’t it? How would you fike to 
have her pour your coffee for you to-morrow, my 
boy? How would it seem to have such pleasant com¬ 
pany all the rest of your life? Pretty cheerful, eh?” 

When Miss Sherwood passed the editor the apple- 
butter, the casual, matter-of-course way she did it 
entranced him in a strange, exquisite wonderment. 
He did not set the dish down when she put it in his 
hand, but held it straight out before him, just look¬ 
ing at it, until Mr. Willetts had a dangerous choking 
fit, for which Minnie was very proud of Lige; no one 
could have suspected that it was the veil of laughter. 
When Helen told John he really must squeeze a 
lemon into his iced tea, he felt that his one need in 
life was to catch her up in his arms and run away 


158 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 
with her, not anywhere in particular, but just ruB 
and run and run away. 

After dinner they went out to the veranda and 
the gentlemen smoked. The judge set his chair 
down on the ground, tilted back in it with his feet 
on the steps, and blew a wavery domed city up in 
the air. He called it solid comfort. He liked to sit 
out from under the porch roof, he said; he wanted to 
see more of the sky. The others moved their chairs 
down to join him in the celestial vision. There had 
blown across the heaven a feathery, thin cloud or 
two, but save for these, there was nothing but 
glorious and tender, brilliant blue. It seemed so 
clear and close one marvelled the little church spire 
in the distance did not pierce it; yet, at the same 
time, the eye ascended miles and miles into warm, 
shimmering ether. Far away two buzzards swung 
slowly at anchor, half-way to the sun. 


‘O bright, translucent, cerulean hue. 
Let my wide wings drift on in you,’ ” 


said Harkless, pointing them out to Helen. 

“You seem to get a good deal of fun out of this 
kind of weather,” observed Lige, as he wiped his 
brow and shifted his chair out of the sun. 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 159 


‘T expect you don’t get such skies as this up in 
Rouen,” said the judge, looking at the girl from 
between half-closed eyelids. 

“It’s the same Indiana sky, I think,” she answered. 

“I guess maybe in the city you don’t see as 
much of it, or think as much about it. Yes, they’re 
the Indiana skies,” the old man went on. 

Skies as blue 

As the eyes of children when they smile at you.' 


“There aren’t any others anywhere that ever 
seemed much like them to me. They’ve been com¬ 
pany for me all my life. I don’t think there are any 
others half as beautiful, and I know there aren’t any 
as sociable. They were alvrays so.” He sighed 
gently, and Miss Sherwood fancied his wife must 
have found the Indiana skies as lovely as he had, 
in the days of long ago. “Seems to me they are the 
softest and bluest and kindest in the world.” 

“I think they are,” said Helen, “and they are 
more beautiful than the Ttalian skies,’ though I 
doubt if many of us Hoosiers realize it; and-^ 
certainly no one else does.” 

The old man leaned over and patted her hand. 
Karkless gasoed. “‘Us Hoosiers!”’ chuckled the 


160 THE GENTLEMAN FHOM INDIANA 
judge. “You’re a great Hoosier, young lady! 
How much of your life have you spent in the State? 
‘Us Hoosiersl’ ” 

“But I’m going to be a good one,” she answered, 
gaily, “and if I’m good enough, when I grow up 
maybe I’ll be a great one.” 

The buckboard had been brought around, and the 
four young people climbed in, Harkless driving. 
Before they started, the judge, standing on the 
horse-block in front of the gate, leaned over and 
patted Miss Sherwood’s hand again. Harkless 
gathered up the reins. 

“You’ll make a great Hoosier, all right,” said the 
old man, beaming upon the girl. “You needn’t 
worry about that, I guess, my dear.” 

When he said “my dear,” Harkless spoke to the 
horses. 

“Wait,” said the judge, still holding the girl’s 
hand. “You’ll make a great Hoosier, some day; 
don’t fret. You’re already a very beautiful one.” 
Then he bent his white head and kissed her, gal¬ 
lantly. John said: “Good afternoon, judge”; the 
whip cracked like a pistol-shot, and the buckboard 
dashed off in a cloud of dust. 

“Every once in a while, Harkless,” the old fellow 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 161 


called after them, ‘‘you must remember to look at 
the team.” 

The enormous white tent was filled with a hazy 
yellow light, the warm, dusty, mellow light that 
thrills the rejoicing heart because it is found 
nowhere in the world except in the tents of a circus 
—the canvas-filtered sunshine and sawdust atmos¬ 
phere of show day. Through the entrance the 
crowd poured steadily, coming from the absorp¬ 
tions of the wild-animal tent to feast upon greater 
wonders; passing around the sawdust ellipse that 
contained two soul-cloying rings, to find seats whence 
they might behold the splendors so soon to be 
unfolded. Every one who was not buying the 
eternal lemonade was eating something; and the 
faces of children shone with gourmand rapture; 
indeed, very often the eyes of them were all you 
saw, half-closed in palate-gloating over a huge apple, 
or a bulky oblong of popcorn, partly unwrapped 
from its blue tissue-paper cover; or else it might be 
a luscious pink crescent of watermelon, that left its 
ravisher stained and dripping to the brow. 

Here, as in the morning, the hawkers raised their 
cries in unintermittent shrillness, offering to the 


m THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

musically inclined the Happy Evenings Song-book, 
alleged to contain those treasures, all the latest songs 
of the day, or presented for the consideration of the 
humorous the Lawrence Lapearl Joke-book, setting 
forth in full the art of comical entertainment and 
repartee. (Schofields’ Henry bought two of these 
—no doubt on the principle that two were twice 
as instructive as one—intending to bury himself 
in study and do battle with Tom Martin on his 
own ground.) 

Here swayed the myriad palm-leaf fans; here 
paraded blushing youth and rosy maiden, more 
relentlessly arm-in-arm than ever; here crept the 
octogenarian, Mr. Bodeffer, shaking on cane and the 
shoulder of posterity; here waddled Mr. Snoddy, 
who had hurried through the animal tent for fear 
of meeting the elephant; here marched sturdy yeo^ 
men and stout wives; here came William Todd and 
his Anna Belle, the good William hushed with the 
embarrassments of love, but looking out warily with 
the white of his eye for Mr. Martin, and determined 
not to sit within a hundred yards of him; here rolled 
in the orbit of habit the bacchanal, Mr. Wilkerson, 
who politely answered in kind all the uncouth roar¬ 
ings and guttural ejaculations of jungle and fen that 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 163 

came from the animal tent; in brief, here came with 
lightest hearts the population of Carlow and part 
of Amo. 

Helen had found a true word: it was a big family. 
Jim Bardlock, broadly smiling and rejuvenated, 
shorn of depression, paused in front of the “reserve” 
seats, with Mrs. Bardlock on his arm, and called 
^oudly to a gentleman on a tier about the level 
of Jim’s head: “How are ye.^ I reckon we were 
a little too smart fer ’em, this morning, huh.^” Five 
or six hundred people—every one within hearing— 
turned to look at Jim; but the gentleman addressed 
was engaged in conversation with a lady and did not 
notice. 

“Hi! Hi, there! Say! Mr. Harkless!” bellowed 
Jim, informally. The people turned to look at 
Harkless. His attention was arrested and his cheek 
grew red. 

“What is it?” he asked, a little confused and a 
good deal annoyed. 

“I don’t hear what ye say,” shouted Jim, putting 
his hand to his ear. 

''What is it?'^ repeated the young man. “I’ll 
kill tliat fellow to-night ” he added to Lige Willett& 
“Some one ought to ha re done it long ago.” 


164 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 
•‘What?’’ 

say. What is it?” 

“I only wanted to say me and you certainly did 
fool these here Hoosiers this morning, huh? Hustled 
them two fellers through the court-house, and 
nobody never thought to slip round to the other 
door and head us off. Ha, ha! We were jest a 
leetle too many fer ’em, huh?” 

From an upper tier of seats the rusty length of 
Mr. Martin erected itself joint by joint, like an 
extension ladder, and he peered down over the gaping 
faces at the Town Marshal. “Excuse me,” he said 
sadly to those behind him, but his dry voice pene¬ 
trated everywhere, “I got up to hear Jim say ‘We’ 
again.” 

Mr. Bardlock joined in the laugh against himself, 
and proceeded with his wife to some seats, forty or 
fifty feet distant. When he had settled himself com¬ 
fortably, he shouted over cheerfully to the unhappy 
editor: “Them shell-men got it in fer you, Mr. 
Harkless.” 

“Ain’t that fool shet up yit?'* snarled the aged 
Mr. Bodeffer, indignantly. He was sitting near the 
young couple, and the expression of his sympathy 
was distinctly audible to them and many others. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 165 

^‘Got no more regards than a brazing calf—dis¬ 
turbin’ a feller with his sweetheart!” 

“The both of ’em says they’re goin’ to do fer 
you,” bleated Mr. Bardlock. “Swear they’ll git 
their evens with ye.” 

Mr. Martin rose again. “Don’t git scared and 
leave town, Mr. Harkless,” he called out; “Jim’U 
protect you.” 

Vastly to the young man’s relief the band began 
to play, and the equestrians and equestriennes 
capered out from tlie dressing-tent for the “Grand 
Entrance,” and the performance commenced. 
Through the long summer afternoon it went on: 
wonders of horsemanship and horsewomanship; 
hair-raising exploits on wires, tight and slack; giddy 
tricks on the high trapeze; feats of leaping and 
tumbling in the rings; while the tireless musicians 
bfatted inspiringly through it all, only pausing long 
enough to allow that uproarious jester, the clown, 
to ask the ring-master what he would do if a young 
lady came up and kissed him on the street, and to 
exploit his hilarities during the short intervals of 
rest for the athletes. 

When it was over, John and Helen found them¬ 
selves in the midst of a densely packed crowd, and 


166 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

separated from Miss Briscoe and Lige. People 
were pushing and shoving, and he saw her face 
grow pale. He realized with a pang of sympathy 
how helpless he would feel if he were as small as 
she, and at his utmost height could only see big, 
suffocating backs and huge shoulders pressing down 
from above. He was keeping them from crowding 
heavily upon her with all his strength, and a royal 
feeling of protectiveness came over him. She was 
so little. And yet, without the remotest hint of 
hardness, she gave him such a distinct impression of 
poise and equilibrium, she seemed so able to meet 
anything that might come, to understand it—even to 
laugh at it—so Americanly capable and sure of the 
event, that in spite of her pale cheek he could not 
feel quite so protective as he wished to feel. 

He managed to get her to one of the tent-poles, 
and placed her with her back to it. Then he set one 
of his own hands against it over her head, braced 
himself and stood, keeping a little space about her, 
ruggedly letting the crowd surge against him as it 
would; no one should touch her in rough carelessness. 

“Thank you. It was rather trying in there,” she 
said, and looked up into his eyes with a divine 
gratitude. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 167 

“Please don’t do that,” he answered in a low 
voice. 

“Do what.^” 

“Look like that.” 

She not only looked like that, but more so. 
“Young man, young man,” she said, “I fear you’re 
wishful of turning a girl’s head.” 

The throng was thick around them, garrulous and 
noisy, but they two were more richly alone together, 
to his appreciation, than if they stood on some far 
satellite of Mars. He was not to forget that moment, 
and he kept the picture of her, as she leaned against 
the big blue tent-pole, there, in his heart: the clear 
gray eyes lifted to his, the delicate face with the 
color stealing back to her cheeks, and the brave 
little figure that had run so straight to him out of 
the night shadows. There was something 
about her, and in the moment, that suddenly 
touched him with a saddening sweetness too keen 
to be borne; the forget-me-not finger of the fiy-^ 
ing hour that could not come again was laid 
on his soul, and he felt the tears start from his 
heart on their journey to his eyes. He knew 
that he should always remember that moment. 
She knew it, too. She put her hand to her cheek 


168 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 
and turned away from him a little tremulously. 
Both were silent. 

They had been together since early morning. 
Plattville was proud of him. Many a friendly 
glance from the folk who jostled about them favored 
his suit and wished both of them well, and many lips, 
opening to speak to Harkless in passing, closed 
when their owners (more tactful than Mr. Bardlock) 
looked a second time. 

Old Tom Martin, still perched alone on his high 
seat, saw them standing by the tent-pole, and 
watched them from under his rusty hat brim. ‘T 
reckon it’s be’n three or four thousand years since I 
was young,” he sighed to himself; then, pushing his 
hat still further down over his eyes: ‘T don’t believe 
I’d ort to rightly look on at that.” He sighed again 
as he rose, and gently spoke the name of his dead 
wife: “Marjie,—it’s be’n lonesome, sometimes. I 
reckon you’re mighty tired waitin’ for me, ever 
since sixty-four—yet maybe not; Ulysses S. Grant’s 
over on your side now, and perhaps you’ve got 
acquainted with him; you always thought a good 
deal more of him than you did of me.” 

“Do you see that tall old man up there.^” said 
Helen, nodding her head toward Martin. “I 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 169 

think I should like to know him. I’m sure I like 
him.” 

“That is old Tom Martin.” 

“I know.” 

‘T was sorry and ashamed about all that con¬ 
spicuousness and shouting. It must have been very 
impleasant for you; it must have been so, for a 
stranger. Please try to forgive me for letting you 
in for it.” 

“But I hked it. It was ‘all in the family,’ and it 
was so jolly and good-natured, and that dear old 
man was so bright. Do you know,” she said softly, 
‘‘I don’t think I’m such a stranger—^I—I think I 
love all these people a great deal—in spite of having 
known them only two days.” 

At that a wild exhilaration possessed him. He 
wanted to shake hands with everybody in the tent, 
to tell them all that he loved them with his whole 
heart, but, what was vastly more importnat, she 
loved them a great deal—in spite of having known 
them only two days! 

He made the horses prance on the homeward 
drive, and once, when she told him that she had 
.'ead a good many of his political columns in the 
“Herald,” he ran them into a fence. After this it 


170 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

occurred to him that they were nearing their des¬ 
tination and had come at a perversely sharp gait; 
so he held the roans down to a snail’s pace (if it be 
true that a snail’s natural gait is not a trot) for the 
rest of the way, while they talked of Tom Meredith 
and books and music, and discovered that they dif¬ 
fered widely about Ibsen. 

They found Mr. Fisbee in the yard, talking to 
Judge Briscoe. As they drove up, and before the 
horses had quite stopped, Helen leaped to the 
ground and ran to the old scholar with both her 
hands outstretched to him. He looked timidly at 
her, and took the hands she gave him; then he pro¬ 
duced from his pocket a yellow telegraph envelope, 
watching her anxiously as she received it. How¬ 
ever, she seemed to attach no particular importance 
to it, and, instead of opening it, leaned toward him, 
still holding one of his hands. 

‘‘These awful old men!” Harkless groaned inwardly 
as he handed the horses over to the judge. “I dare 
say he'W kiss her, too.” But, when the editor and Mr 
Willetts had gone, it was Helen who kissed Fisbee. 

“They’re coming out to spend the evening, a?ren’t 
they.^” asked Briscoe, nodding to the young men as 
they set off down the road. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 171 

“Lige has to come whether he wants to or not/’ 
Minnie laughed, rather consciously; “It’s his turn 
to-night to look after Mr. Harkless.” 

“I guess he won’t mind coming,” said the judge. 

“Well,” returned his daughter, glancing at Helen; 
who stood apart, reading the telegram to Fisbee, “1 
know if he follows Mr. Harkless he’ll get here pretty 
soon after supper—as soon as the moon comes up, 
anyway.” 

The editor of the “Herald” was late to his sup¬ 
per that evening. It was dusk when he reached 
the hotel, and, for the first time in history, a gentle¬ 
man sat down to meat in that house of entertainment 
in evening dress. There was no one in the dining¬ 
room when he went in; the other boarders had fin¬ 
ished, and it was Cynthia’s “evening out,” but the 
landlord came and attended to his guests’ wants 
himself, and chatted with him while he ate. 

“There’s a picture of Henry Clay,” remarked 
Landis, in obvious relevancy to his companion’s 
attire, “there’s a picture of Henry Clay somewheres 
about the house in a swallow-tail coat. Governor 
Ray spoke here in one in early times, Bodeffer says, 
except it was higher built up ’n yourn about the 
collar, and had brass buttons, I think. Ole man 


172 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 
Wimby was here to-night/’ the landlord continued, 
changing the subject. “He waited around fer ye 
a good while. He’s be’n mighty wrought up sence 
the trouble this morning, an’ wanted to see ye bad. 
I don’t know ’f you seen it, but that feller’t knocked 
your hat off was mighty near tore to pieces in the 
crowd before he got away. ’Seems some the boys 
re-cog-nized him as one the Cross-Roads Skillets, 
and sicked the dogs on him, and he had a pretty 
mean time of it. Wimby says the Cross-Roads folks 
’ll be worse ’n ever, and, says he, ‘Tell him to stick 
close to town,’ says he. ‘They’ll do anything to git 
him now,’ says he, ‘and resk anything.’ I told him 
you wouldn’t take no stock in it, but, see here, don’t 
you put nothin’ too mean fer them folks. I tell you, 
Mr. Harkless, plenty of us are scared fer ye.” 

The good fellow was so earnest that when the 
editor’s meal was finished and he would have de¬ 
parted, Landis detained him almost by force until 
the arrival of Mr. Willetts, who, the landlord knew, 
was his allotted escort for the evening. When Lige 
came (wearing a new tie, a pink one he had hastened 
to buy as soon as his engagements had allowed him 
the opportunity), Mr. Landis hissed a savage word 
of reproach for his tardiness in his ear, and whisper. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 173 

ingly bade him not let the other out of reach that 
night, to which Willetts replied with a nod implying 
his trustworthiness; and the young men set off in 
the darkness. 

Harkless wondered if his costume were not an 
injustice to his companion, but he did not regret it; 
he would wear his best court suit, his laces and vel¬ 
vets, for deference to that lady. It was a painful 
thing to remember his dusty rustiness of the night 
before, the awful Carlow cut of his coat, and his 
formless black cravat; the same felt hat he wore 
again to-night, perforce, but it was brushed— 
brushed almost to holes in spots, and somehow he 
had added a touch of shape to it. His dress-coat 
was an antique; fashions had changed, no doubt; he 
did not know; possibly she would recognize its vin¬ 
tage—but it was a dress-coat. 

Lige walked along talking; Harkless answering 
‘‘Yes” and “No” at random. The woodland- 
spiced air was like champagne to him; the road 
under foot so elastic and springy that he felt like a 
thoroughbred before a race; he wanted to lift his 
foot knee-high at every step, he had so much energy 
to spare. In the midst of a speech of Lige’s about 
the look of the wheat he suddenly gave out a sigh 


174 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


so deep, so heartfelt, so vibrant, so profound, that 
Willetts turned with astonishment; but when his 
eye reached his comapnion’s face, Harkless was 
smiling. The editor extended his hand. 

“Shake hands, Lige,” he cried. 

The moon peeped over the shoulder of an eastern 
wood, and the young men suddenly descried their 
long shadows stretching in front of them. Harkless 
turned to look at the silhouetted town, the tree-tops 
and roofs and the Methodist church spire, silvered 
at the edges. 

“Do you see that town, Willetts.^” he asked, lay¬ 
ing his fingers on his companion’s sleeve. “That’s 
the best town in the United States!'’ 

“I always kind of thought you didn’t much like 
it,” said the other, puzzled. “Seemed to me you al¬ 
ways sort of wished you hadn’t settled here.” 

A little further on they passed Mr. Fisbee. He 
was walking into the village with his head thrown 
back, a strange thing for him. They gave him a 
friendly greeting and passed on. 

“Well, it beats me!” observed Lige, when the 
old man was out of hearing. “He’s be’n there to 
supper again. He was there all day yesterday, and 
with ’em at the lecture, and at the deepo day before 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 175 


and he looks like another man, and dressed up—for 
him—to beat thunder— What do you expect makes 
him so thick out there all of a sudden?’’ 

‘T hadn’t thought about it. The judge and he 
have been friends a good while, haven’t they?” 

“Yes, three or four years; but not like this. It 
beats me! He’s all upset over Miss Sherwood, I 
think. Old enough to be her grandfather, too, the 
old-” 

His companion stopped him, dropping a hand on 
his shoulder. 

“Listen!” 

They were at the corner of the Briscoe picket 
fence, and a sound lilted through the stillness—a 
touch on the keys that Harkless knew. “Listen,” 
he whispered. 

It was the “Moonlight Sonata” that Helen was 
playing. “It’s a pretty piece,” observed Lige after 
a time. John could have choked him, but he an- 
wered: “Yes, it is seraphic.” 

“Who made it up?” pursued Mr. Willetts. 

“Beethoven.” 

“Foreigner, I expect. Yet in some way or an¬ 
other makes me think of fishing down on the Wabash 
bend in Vigo, and camping out nights like this; it’s a 


176 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


mighty pretty country around there—especially at 
night.” 

The sonata was finished, and then she sang—sang 
the “Angel’s Serenade.” As the soft soprano lifted 
and fell in the modulations of that song there was in 
its timbre, apart from the pure, amber music of it, a 
questing, seeking pathos, and Willetts felt the hand 
on his shoulder tighten and then relax; and, as the 
song ended, he saw that his companion’s eyes were 
shining and moist. 


CHAPTER IX 


night: it is bab luck to sing before breakfast 



[HERE was a lace of faint mists along the 


creek and beyond, when John and Helen 


reached their bench (of course they went 
back there), and broken roundelays were croaking 
from a bayou up the stream, where rakish frogs held 
carnival in resentment of the lonesomeness. The air 
was still and close. Hundreds of fire-flies coquetted 
with the darkness amongst the trees across the water, 
glinting from unexpected spots, shading their little 
lanterns for a second to glow again from other 
shadows. The sky was a wonderful olive green; 
a lazy cloud drifted in it and lapped itself athwart 
the moon. 

“The dead painters design the skies for us each 
day and night, I think,” Plelen said, as she dropped a 
little scarf from her shoulders and leaned back on 
the bench. “It must be the only way to keep them 
happy and busy ‘up there.’ They let them take 


178 THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 
turns, and those not on duty, probably float 
around and criticise.” 

“TiieyVe given a good man his turn to-night,” 
said John; “some quiet colorist, a poetic, friendly 
soul, no Turner—though I think I’ve seen a Turner 
sunset or two in Plattville.” 

“It was a sculptor’s sunset this evening. Did 
you see it?—great massy clouds piled heap on heap, 
almost with violence. I’m sure it was Michelangelo. 
The judge didn’t think it meant Michelangelo; he 
thought it meant rain.” 

“Michelangelo gets a chance rather often, doesn’t 
he, considering the number of art people there must 
be over there? I believe I’ve seen a good many sun¬ 
sets of his, and a few dawns, too; the dawns not for 
a long time—I used to see them more frequently 
toward the close of senior year, when we sat up all 
night talking, knowing we’d lose one another soon, 
and trying to hold on as long as we could.” 

She turned to him with a little frown. “Why 
have you never let Tom Meredith know you were 
living so near him, less than a hundred miles, when 
he has always liked and admired you above all the 
rest of mankind? I know that he has tried time 
and again to hear of you, but the other men wrote 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 179 

that they knew nothing—that it was thought you 
had gone abroad. I had heard of you, and so must 
he have seen your name in the Rouen papers—about 
the ‘White-Caps,’ and in politics—but he would 
never dream of connecting the Plattville Mr. Hark- 
less with his Mr. Harkless, though I did, just a 
little, and rather vaguely. I knew, of course, when 
you came into the lecture. But why haven’t you 
written to my cousin.^” 

“Rouen seems a long way from here,” he an¬ 
swered quietly. “I’ve only been there once—half 
a day on business. Except that, I’ve never been 
further away than Amo or Gainesville, for a conven¬ 
tion or to make a speech, since I came here.” 

“Wicked!” she exclaimed, “To shut yourself up 
like this! I said it was fine to drop out of the world; 
but why have you cut off your old friends from you,^ 
Why haven’t you had a relapse, now and then, and 
come over to hear Ysaye play and Melba sing, or to 
see Mansfield or Henry Irving, when we have had 
them? And do you think you’ve been quite fair to 
Tom? What right had you to assume that he had 
forgotten you?” 

“Oh, I didn’t exactly mean forgotten,” he said, 
pulling a blade of grass to and fro between his fin- 


180 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


gers, staring at it absently. “It’s only that I have 
dropped out of the world, you know. I kept track 
of every one, saw most of my friends, or corre¬ 
sponded, now and then, for a year or so after I left 
college; but people don’t miss you much after a 
while. They rather expected me to do a lot of 
things, in a way, you know, and I wasn’t doing 
them. I was glad to get away. I always had an 
itch for newspaper work, and I went on a New York 
paper. Maybe it was the wrong paper; at least, I 
wasn’t fit for it. There was something in the side 
of life I saw, too, not only on the paper, that made 
me heart-sick; and then the rush and fight and 
scramble to be first, to beat the other man. Prob¬ 
ably I am too squeamish. I saw classmates and 
college friends diving into it, bound to come out 
ahead, dear old, hor^est, frank fellows, who had been 
sot happy-go-lucky and kind and gay, growing too 
busy to meet and be good to any man who couldn’t 
be good to them, asking (more delicately) the eternal 
question, ‘What does it get me?’ You might think 
I had met with unkindness; but it was not so; it was 
the other way more than I deserved. But the 
cruel competition, the thousands fighting for places, 
the multitude scrambling for each ginger-bread 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 181 


baton, the cold faces on the streets—perhaps it’s 
all right and good; of course it has to he —but I 
wanted to get out of it, though I didn’t want to come 
here. That was chance. A new man bought the 
paper I was working for, and its policy changed. 
Many of the sanle men still wrote for it, facing cheer¬ 
fully about and advocating a tricky theory, vehe¬ 
ment champions of a set of personal schemers and 
waxy images.” 

He spoke with feeling; but now, as though a trifle 
ashamed of too much seriousness, and justifiably 
afraid of talking like one of his own editorials, he 
took a lighter tone. ‘T had been taken on the 
paper through a friend and not through merit, and 
by the same undeserved, kindly influence, after a 
month or so I was set to writing short political edi¬ 
torials, and was at it nearly two years. When the 
paper changed hands the new proprietor indicated 
that he would be willing to have me stay and write 
the other way. I refused; and it became somewhat 
plain to me that I was beginning to be a failure. 

“A cousin of mine, the only relative I had, died 
in Chicago, and I went to his funeral. I happened 
to hear of the Carlow ‘Herald’ through an agent 
there, the most eloquent gentleman I ever met. I 


182 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

was younger, and even more thoughtless than now, 
and I had a little money and I handed it over for 
the ‘Herald.’ I wanted to run a paper myself, 
and to build up a power! And then, though I 
only lived here the first few years of my life and 
all the rest of it had been spent in the East, I was 
bom in Indiana, and, in a way, the thought of com¬ 
ing back to a hfe-work in my native State appealed 
to me. I always had a dim sort of feeling that the 
people out in these parts knew more—had more 
sense and were less artificial, I mean—and were 
kinder, and tried less to be somebody else, than 
almost any other people anywhere. And I believe 
it’s so. It’s dull, here in Carlow, of course—that 
is, it used to be. The agent explained that I could 
make the paper a daily at once, with an enormous 
circulation in the country. I was very, very young. 
Then I came here and saw what I had got. Possi¬ 
bly it is because I am sensitive that I never let Tom 
know. They expected me to amount to something: 
but I don’t believe his welcome would be less hearty 
to a failure—he is a good heart.” 

“Failure!” she cried, and clapped her hands and 
laughed. 

“I’m really not very tragic about it, though I 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 183 


must seem consumed with self-pity,” he returned, 
smiling. ‘Tt is only that I have dropped out of the 
world while Tom is still in it.” 

‘“Dropped out of the world!’” she echoed, im¬ 
patiently. “Can’t you see you’ve dropped into it? 
That you-” 

“Last night I was honored by your praise of my 
graceful mode of quitting it!” 

“And so you wish me to be consistent!” she re¬ 
torted scornfully. “What becomes of your gal¬ 
lantry when we abide by reason?” 

“True enough; equality is a denial of privilege.” 

“And privilege is a denial of equality. I don’t 
like that at all.” She turned a serious, suddenly 
illuminated face upon him and spoke earnestly. 
“It’s my hobby, I should tell you, and I’m very 
tired of that nonsense about ‘women always sound¬ 
ing the personal note.’ It should be sounded as we 
would sound it. And I think we could bear the loss 
of ‘privilege’-” 

He laughed and raised a protesting hand. “But 
we couldn’t.” 

“No, you couldn’t; it’s the ribbon of superiority 
in your buttonhole. I know several women who 
manage to live without men to open doors for them. 


184 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


and I think I could bear to let a man pass before me 
now and then, or wear his hat in an office where I 
happened to be; and I could get my own ice at a 
dance, I think, possibly with even less fuss and 
scramble than I’ve sometimes observed in the young 
men who have done it for me. But you know you 
would never let us do things for ourselves, no matter 
what legal equality might be declared, even when 
we get representation for our taxation. You will 
never be able to deny yourselves giving us our 
‘privilege.’ I hate being waited on. I’d rather do 
things for myself.” 

She was so earnest in her satire, so full of scorn 
and so serious in her meaning, and there was such 
a contrast between what she said and her person; she 
looked so preeminently the pretty marquise, all silks 
and softness, the little exquisite, so essentially to be 
waited on and helped, to have cloaks thrown over 
the dampness for her to tread upon, to be run about 
for—he could see haK a dozen youths rushing about 
for her ices, for her carriage, for her chaperone, for 
her wrap, at dances—that to save his life he could 
not repress a chuckle. He managed to make it in¬ 
audible, however; and it was as well that he did. 

‘T understand your love of newspaper work,’* 


THE GENTLEI^IAN FROM INDIANA 185 


she went on, less vehemently, but not less earnestly. 
‘T have always wanted to do it myself, wanted to 
immensely. I can’t think of any more fascinating 
way of earning one’s living. And I know I could 
do it. Why don’t you make the ‘Herald’ a daily?” 

To hear her speak of “earning one’s living” was 
too much for him. She gave the impression of 
riches, not only for the fine texture and fashioning of 
her garments, but one felt that luxuries had wrapped 
her from her birth. He had not had much time to 
wonder what she did in Plattville; it had occurred 
to him that it was a little odd that she could plan to 
spend any extent of time there, even if she had liked 
Minnie Briscoe at school. He felt that she must 
have been sheltered and petted and waited on all her 
life; one could not help yearning to wait on her. 

He answered inarticulately, “Oh, some day,” in 
reply to her question, and then burst into outright 
laughter. 

“I might have known you wouldn’t take me seri¬ 
ously,” she said with no indignation, only a sad 
wistfulness. “I am well used to it. I think it is 
because I am not tall; people take big girls with 
more gravity. Big people are nearly always lis¬ 
tened to.” 


186 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“Listened to?” he said, and felt that he must 
throw himself on his knees before her. “You 
oughtn’t to mind being Titania. She was listened 
to, you-” 

She sprang to her feet and her eyes flashed. “Do 
you think personal comment is ever in good taste?” 
she cried fiercely, and in his surprise he almost fell 
off the bench. “If there is one thing I cannot bear, 
it is to be told that I am ‘small.’ I am not! Every 
one who isn’t a giantess isn’t ‘small.’ I hate per¬ 
sonalities! I am a great deal over five feet, a great 

deal more than that. I-” 

“Please, 'please’’ he said, “I didn’t-” 

“Don’t say you are sorry,” she interrupted, and 
in spite of his contrition he found her angry voice 
delicious, it was still so sweet, hot with indignation, 
but ringing, not harsh. “Don’t say you didn’t 
mean it; because you did! You canT unsay it, you 
cannot alter it! Ah!” She drew in her breath with 
a sharp sigh, and covering her face with her hands, 
sank back upon the bench. “I will not cry,” she 
said, not so firmly as she thought she did. 

“My blessed child!” he cried, in great distress 
and perturbation, “What have I done? I—* 
1 -” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 187 

“Call me ‘small’ all you like!” she answered. “I 
don’t care. It isn’t that. You mustn’t think me 
such an imbecile.” She dropped her hands from 
her face and shook the tears from her eyes with a 
mournful laugh. He saw that her hands were 
clenched tightly and her lip trembled. “I will not 
cry!” she said in a low voice. 

“Somebody ought to murder me; I ought to have 
thought—personalities are hideous-” 

“Don’t! It wasn’t that.” 

“I ought to be shot-” 

“Ah, please don’t say that,” she said, shuddering; 
“please don’t, not even as a joke—after last 
night.” 

“But I ought to be for hurting you, indeed-” 

She laughed sadly, again. “It wasn’t that. I 
don’t care what you call me. I am small. You’ll 
try to forgive me for being such a baby.^ I didn’t 
mean anything I said. I haven’t acted so badly 
since I was a child.” 

“It’s my fault, all of it. I’ve tired you out. And 
I let you get into that crush at the circus—” he was 
going on, remorsefully. 

''Tkatr she interrupted. “I don’t think I would 
have missed the circus.” He had a thrilling hope 



188 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

that she meant the tent-pole; she looked as if she 
meant that, but he dared not let himself believe 
it. 

“No,” he continued; “I have been so madly 
happy in being with you that IVe fairly worn out 
your patience. I’ve haunted you all day, and I 
have-” 

“All that has nothing to do with it,” she said, 
slowly. “Just after you left, this afternoon, I found 
that I could not stay here. My people are going 
abroad, to Dresden, at once, and I must go with 
them. That’s what almost made me cry. I leave 
to-morrow morning.” 

He felt something strike at his heart. In the sud¬ 
den sense of dearth he had no astonishment that she 
should betray such agitation over her departure 
from a place she had known so little, and friends who 
certainly were not part of her life. He rose to his 
feet, and, resting his arm against a sycamore, stood 
staring away from her at nothing. 

She did not move. There was a long silence. 

He had wakened suddenly; the skies had been 
sapphire, the sward emerald, Plattville a Camelot of 
romance; to be there, enchantment—and now, like a 
meteor burned out in a breath, the necromancy fell 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 189 


away and he gazed into desolate years. The thought 
of the Square, his dusty office, the bleak length of 
Main Street, as they should appear to-morrow, gave 
him a faint physical sickness. To-day it had all 
been touched to beauty; he had felt fit to live and 
work there a thousand years—a fooFs dream, and 
the waking was to emptiness. He should die now 
of hunger and thirst in that Sahara; he hoped the 
Fates would let it be soon—but he knew they would 
not; knew that this was hysteria, that in his endur¬ 
ance he should plod on, plod, plod dustily on, 
through dingy, lonely years. 

There was a rumble of thunder far out on the 
western prairie. A cold breath stole through the 
hot stillness, and an arm of vapor reached out be¬ 
tween the moon and the quiet earth. Darkness feD. 
The man and the girl kept silence between them. 
They might have been two sad guardians of the 
black little stream that splashed unseen at their feet. 
Now and then an echo of far away lightning faintly 
illumined them with a green light. Thunder rolled 
nearer, ominously; the gods were driving theii 
chariots over the bridge. The chill breath passed, 
leaving the air again to its hot inertia. 

‘T did not want to go,” she said, at last, with tears 


190 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

just below the surface of her voice. ‘T wanted to 
stay here, but he—they wouldn’t—I can’t.” 

“Wanted to stay here?” he said, huskily, not 
turning. “Here?” 

“Yes.” 

“In Rouen, you mean?” 

“In Plattville.” 

“In Plattville?” He turned now, astounded. 

“Yes; wouldn’t you have taken me on the ‘Her¬ 
ald’?” She rose and came toward him. “I could 
have supported myself here if you would—and I’ve 
studied how newspapers are made; I know I could 
have earned a wage. We could have made it a 
daily.” He searched in vain for a trace of raillery 
in her voice; there was none; she seemed to intend 
her words to be taken literally. 

“I don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t know 
what you mean.” 

“I mean that I want to stay here; that I ought to 
stay here; that my conscience tells me I should—but 
I can’t and it makes me very unhappy. That was 
why I acted so badly.” 

“Your conscience!” he cried. 

“Oh, I know what a jumble and puzzle it must 
seem to you.” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 191 


‘T only know one thing; that you are going away 
to-morrow morning, and that I shall never see you 
again.” 

The darkness had grown heavy. They could not 
see each other; but a wan glimmer gave him a fleet¬ 
ing, misty view of her; she stood half-turned away 
from him, her hand to her cheek in the uncertain 
fashion of his great moment of the afternoon; her 
eyes—^he saw in the flying picture that he caught— 
were adorably troubled and her hand trembled. She 
Lad been irresistible in her gaiety; but now that a 
mysterious distress assailed her, the reason for which 
he had no guess, she was so divinely pathetic; and 
seemed such a rich and lovely and sad and happy 
thing to have come into his life only to go out of it; 
and he was so full of the prophetic sense of loss of 
her—it seemed so much like losing everything—that 
he found too much to say to be able to say any¬ 
thing. 

He tried to speak, and choked a little. A big drop 
of rain fell on his bare head. Neither of them 
noticed the weather or cared for it. They stood 
with the renewed blackness hanging like a thick 
drapery between them. 

“Can—can you—tell me why you think you 


192 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

ought not to go?” he whispered, finally, with a great 
effort. 

“No; not now. But I know you would think I 
am right in wanting to stay,” she cried, impulsively. 
“I know you would, if you knew about it—but I 
can’t, I can’t. I must go in the morning.” 

“I should always think you right,” he answered 
in an unsteady tone, “Always!” He went over to 
the bench, fumbled about for his hat, and picked it 
up. 

“Come,” he said, gently, “I am going now.” 

She stood quite motionless for a full minute or 
longer; then, without a word, she moved toward the 
house. He went to her with hands extended to 
find her, and his fingers touched her sleeve. Then 
together and silently they found the garden-path 
and followed its dim length. In the orchard he 
touched her sleeve again and led the way. 

As they came out behind the house she detained 
him. Stopping short, she shook his hand from her 
arm. She spoke in a single breath, as if it were all 
one word: 

“Will you tell me why you go? It is not late. 
Why do you wish to leave me, when I shall not see 
you again?” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 193 


“The Lord be good to me!” he broke out, all 
his long-pent passion of dreams rushing to his lips, 
now that the barrier fell. “Don’t you see it is be¬ 
cause I can’t bear to let you go.^ I hoped to get 
away without saying it. I want to be alone. I 
want to be with myself and try to realize. I didn’t 
want to make a babbling idiot of myself—but I 
am! It is because I don’t want another second of 
your sweetness to leave an added pain when you’ve 
gone. It is because I don’t want to hear your voice 
again, to have it haunt me in the loneliness you will 
leave—but it’s useless, useless! I shall hear it al¬ 
ways, just as I shall always see your face, just as I 
have heard your voice and seen your face these 
seven years—ever since I first saw you, a child at 
Winter Harbor. I forgot for a while; I thought it 
was a girl I had made up out of my own heart, but 
it was you—^you always! The impression I thought 
nothing of at the time, just the merest touch on my 
heart, light as it was, grew and grew deeper until it 
was there forever. You’ve known me twenty-four 
hours, and I understand what you think of me for 
speaking to you like this. If I had known you for 
years and had waited and had the right to speak and 
keep your respect, what have I to offer you? I 


194 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


couldn’t even take care of you if you went mad as I 
and listened. IVe no excuse for this raving. Yes, 
I have!” 

He saw her in another second of lightning, a 
sudden, bright one. Her back was turned to him; 
she had taken a few startled steps from him. 

“Ah,” he cried, “you are glad enough, now, to 
see me go! I knew it. I wanted to spare myself 
that. I tried not to be a hysterical fool in your 
eyes.” He turned aside and his head fell on his 
breast. “God help me,” he said, “what will this 
place be to me now.^” 

The breeze had risen; it gathered force; it was a 
chili wind, and there rose a wailing on the prairie, 
Drops of rain began to fall. 

“You will not think a question implied in this,” 
he said more composedly, and with an unhappy 
laugh at himself. “I believe you will not think me 
capable of asking you if you care-” 

“No,” she answered; “I—I do not love you.” 

“Ah! Was it a question, after all.^ I—you read 
me better than I do, perhaps—but if I asked, I knew 
the answer.” 

She made as if to speak again, but words refused 
her. 



THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 195 

After a moment, “Good-by,” he said, very stead¬ 
ily. “I thank you for the charity that has given me 
this little time with you—it will always be—precious 
to me—I shall always be your servant.” His steadi¬ 
ness did not carry him to the end of his sentence. 
“Good-by.” 

She started toward him and stopped, without his 
seeing her. She answered nothing; but stretched 
out her hand to him and then let it fall quickly, 

“Good-by,” he said again. “I shall go out the 
orchard gate. Please tell them good-night for me. 
Won’t you speak to me.^ Good-by.” 

He stood waiting while the rising wind blew their 
garments about them. She leaned against the wall 
of the house. “Won’t you say good-by and tell me 
you can forget my-” 

She did not speak. 

“No!” he cried, wildly. “Since you don’t for¬ 
get it! I have spoiled what might have been a pleas¬ 
ant memory for you, and I know it. You were al¬ 
ready troubled, and I have added, and you won’t 
forget it, nor shall I—nor shall I! Don’t say good- 
by—I can say it for both of us. God bless you— 
and good-by, good-by, good-by!” 

He crushed his hat down over his eyes and ran 


196 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


toward the orchard gate. For a moment lightning 
flashed repeatedly; she saw him go out the gate and 
disappear into sudden darkness. He ran through 
the field and came out on the road. Heaven and 
earth were revealed again for a dazzling white 
second. From horizon to horizon rolled clouds 
contorted like an illimitable field of inverted hay¬ 
stacks, and beneath them enormous volumes of pale 
vapor were tumbling in the west, advancing east¬ 
ward with sinister swiftness. She ran to a little 
knoll at the corner of the house and saw him set his 
face to the storm. She cried aloud to him with all 
her strength and would have followed, but the wind 
took the words out of her mouth and drove her back 
cowering to the shelter of the house. 

Out on the road the dust came lashing and sting¬ 
ing him like a thousand nettles; it smothered him, 
and beat upon him so that he covered his face with 
his sleeve and fought into the storm shoulder fore¬ 
most, dimly glad of its rage, scarcely conscious of it, 
keeping westward on his way to nowhere. West or 
east, south or north—it was all one to him. The few 
heavy drops that fell boiling into the dust ceased to 
come; the rain withheld while the wind-kings rode 
on earth. On he went in spite of them. On anci 


THE GENTLE]\iAN FROM INDIANA 197 

on, running blindly when he could run at all. At 
least, the wind-kings were company. He had been 
so long alone. He could remember no home that 
had ever been his since he was a little child, neither 
father nor mother, no one who belonged to him 
or to whom he belonged, except one cousin, an 
old man who was dead. For a day his dreams 
bad found in a girl’s eyes the precious thing that is 
called home—oh, the wild fancy! He laughed 
aloud. 

There was a startling answer; a lance of living fire 
hurled from the sky, riving the fields before his eyes, 
while crash on crash of artillery numbed his ears. 
With that his common-sense awoke and he looked 
about him. He was almost two miles from town; 
the nearest house was the Briscoes’ far down the 
road. He knew the rain would come now. There 
was a big oak near him at the roadside. He stepped 
under its sheltering branches and leaned against the 
great trunk, wiping the perspiration and dust from 
his face. A moment of stunned quiet had suc¬ 
ceeded the peal of thunder. It was followed by 
several moments of incessant lightning that played 
along the road and danced in the fields. From that 
intolerable brightness he turned his head and saw. 


200 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

Lige’s arm; the young man was looking straight 
before him; the judge got up and walked nervously 
back and forth. Helen rose to her feet swiftly and 
went toward the old man, her hands pressed to her 
bosom. 

‘"All!” she cried out, sharply, “I had forgotten 
that! You don’t think they—^you don’t think 
he-” 

“I know what I think,” Lige broke in; “I think 
I’d ought to be hanged for letting him out of my 
sight. Maybe it’s all right; maybe he turned and 
started right back for town—and got there. But I 
had no business to leave him, and if I can I’ll catch 
up with him yet.” He went to the front door, and, 
opening it, let in a tornado of wind and flood of 
water that beat him back; sheets of rain blew in 
horizontally, in spite of the porch beyond. 

Briscoe followed him. “Don’t be a fool, Lige,” 
he said. “You hardly expect to go out in that.” 
Lige shook his head; it needed them both to get the 
door closed. The young man leaned against it and 
passed his sleeve across his wet brow. “I hadn’t 
ought to have left him.” 

“Don’t scare the girls,” whispered the other; then 
in a louder tone: “All I’m afraid of is that he’ll get 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 201 

blown to pieces or catch his death of cold. That’s 
all there is to worry about. Those scalawags wouldn’t 
try it again so soon after last night. I’m not bother¬ 
ing about that; not at all. That needn’t worry 
anybody.” 

“But this morning-” 

“Pshaw! He’s likely home and dry by this time 
—all foolishness; don’t be an old woman.” The 
two men reentered the room and found Helen 
clinging to Minnie’s hand on the sofa. She looked 
up at them quickly. 

“Do you think—do you—what do you—” Her 
voice shook so that she could not go on. 

The judge pinched her cheek and patted it. “I 
think he’s home and dry, but I think he got wet first; 
that’s what I think. Never you fear, he’s a good 
hand at taking care of himself. Sit down, Lige. 
You can’t go for a while.” Nor could he. It was 
long before he could venture out; the storm raged 
and roared without abatement; it was Carlow’s 
worst since ’Fifty-one, the old gentleman said. They 
heard the great limbs crack and break outside, 
while the thunder boomed and the wind ripped at 
the eaves till it seemed the roof must go. Mean¬ 
while the judge, after some apology, lit his pipe and 


202 THE GENTLEMAN FEOM INDIANA 

told long stories of the storms of early days and of 
odd freaks of the wind. He talked on calmly, the 
picture of repose, and blew rings above his head, 
but Helen saw that one of his big slippers beat an 
unceasing little tattoo on the carpet. She sat with 
fixed eyes, in silence, holding Minnie’s hand tightly; 
and her face was colorless, and grew whiter as the 
slow hours dragged by. 

Every moment Mr. Willetts became more rest¬ 
less, though assuring the ladies he had no anxiety 
regarding Mr. Harkless; it was only his own derelic¬ 
tion of duty that he regretted; the boys would have 
the laugh c«i him, he said. But he visibly chafed 
more and more under the judge’s stories; and con¬ 
stantly rose to peer out of the window into the 
wrack and turmoil, or uneasily shifted in his chair. 
Once or twice he struck his hands together with 
muttered ejaculations. At last there was a lull in 
the fury without, and, as soon as it was perceptible, 
he declared his intention of making his way into 
town; he had ought to have went before, he declared, 
apprehensively; and then, with immediate amend¬ 
ment, of course he would find the editor at work in 
the “Herald” oflGice; there wasn’t the slightest doubt* 
of that; he agreed with the judge, but he better see 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDlxlNA 203 

about it. He would return early in the morning 
to bid Miss Sherwood good-by; hoped she’d come 
back, some day; hoped it wasn’t her last visit to 
Plattville. They gave him an umbrella and he 
plunged out into the night, and as they stood watch¬ 
ing him for a moment from the door, the old man 
calling after him cheery good-nights and laughing 
messages to Harkless, they could hear his feet slosh 
into the puddles and see him fight with his umbrella 
when he got out into the road. 

Helen’s room was over the porch, the windows 
facing north, looking out upon the pike and across 
the fields beyond. “Please don’t light the lamp, 
Minnie,” she said, when they had gone upstairs. “I 
don’t need a light.” Miss Briscoe was flitting about 
the room, hunting for matches. In the darkness 
she came to her friend, and laid a kind, large hand 
on Helen’s eyes, and the hand became wet. She 
drew Helen’s head down on her shoulder and sat 
beside her on the bed. 

“Sweetheart, you mustn’t fret,” she soothed, in 
motherly fashion. “Don’t you worry, dear. He’s 
all right. It isn’t your fault, dear. They wouldn’t 
come on a night like this.” 

But Helen drew away and went to the window. 


204 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

flattening her arm against the pane, her forehead 
pressed against her arm. She had let him go; she 
had let him go alone. She had forgotten the danger 
that always beset him. She had been so crazy, she 
had seen nothing, thought of nothing. She had let 
him go into that, and into the storm, alone. Who 
knew better than she how cruel they were? She 
had seen the fire leap from the white blossom and 
heard the ball whistle, the ball they had meant for 
his heart, that good, great heart. She had run to 
him the night before—why had she let him go into 
the unknown and the storm to-night? But how 
could she have stopped him? How could she have 
kept him, after what he had said? She peered into 
the right through distorting tears^ 

The wind had gone down a little, v>at only a little, 
and the electrical flashes danced all around the 
horizon in magnificent display, sometimes far away, 
sometimes dazingly near, the darkness trebly deep 
between the intervals when the long sweep of flat 
lands lay in dazzling clearness, clean-cut in the 
washed air to the finest detail of stricken field and 
heaving woodland. A staggering flame clove earth 
and sky; sheets of light came following it, and a 
frightful uproar shook the house and rattled the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 205 

casements, but over the crash of thunder Minnie 
heard her friend’s loud scream and saw her spring 
back from the window with both hands, palm out¬ 
ward, pressed to her face. She leaped to her and 
threw her arms about her. 

“What is it?” 

“Look!” Helen dragged her to the win¬ 
dow. “At the next flash—the fence beyond the 
meadow-” 

“What was it? What was it like?” The light¬ 
ning flashed incessantly. Helen tried to point; her 
hand only jerked from side to side. 

“LooA;.'” she cried. 

“I see nothing but the lightning,” Minnie an¬ 
swered, breathlessly. 

“Oh, the fence! The fence—and in the field!” 

^'Helen! What was it like?'* 

“Ah-ah!” she panted, “a long line of white— 
horrible white-” 

“What like?" Minnie turned from the window 
and caught the other’s wrist in a fluttering 
clasp. 

“Minnie, Minnie! Like long white gowns and 
cowls crossing the fence.” Helen released her 
wrist, and put both hands on Minnie’s cheeks. 



206 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

forcing her around to face the pane. “You must 
look—you must look,” she cried. 

“They wouldn’t do it, they wouldn’t—it isn’t!” 
Minnie cried. “They couldn’t come in the storm. 
They wouldn’t do it in the pouring rain!” 

“Yes! Such things would mind the rain!” She 
burst into hysterical laughter, and Minnie, almost 
as unnerved, caught her about the waist. “They 
would mind the rain. They would fear a storm! Ha, 
ha, ha! Yes—yes! And I let him go—I let him go!” 

Pressing close together, shuddering, clasping each 
other’s waists, the two girls peered out at the flicker¬ 
ing landscape. 

“LooA:./” 

Up from the distant fence that bordered the 
northern side of Jones’s field, a pale, pelted, flap- 
^ ping thing reared itself, poised, and seemed, just 
as the blackness came again, to drop to the ground. 

“Did you see?” 

But Minnie had thrown herself into a chair with 
a laugh of wild relief. “My darling girl!” she cried. 
“Not a line of white things—just one—Mr. Jones’s 
old scarecrow! And we saw it blown down!” 

“No, no, no! I saw the others; they were in the 
field beyond. I saw them! When I looked the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 207 

first time they were nearly all on the fence. This 
time we saw the last man crossing. Ah! I let him 
go alone!’’ 

Minnie sprang up and enfolded her. “No; you 
dear, imagining child, you’re upset and nervous— 
that’s all the matter in the world. Don’t worry; 
don’t, child, it’s all right. Mr. Harkless is home 
and safe in bed long ago. I know that old scare¬ 
crow on the fence like a book; you’re so unstrung 
you fancied the rest. He’s all right; don’t you 
bother, dear.” 

The big, motherly girl took her companion in 
her arms and rocked her back and forth soothingly, 
and petted and reassured her, and then cried a 
little with her, as a good-hearted girl always will 
with a friend. Then she left her for the night 
with many a cheering word and tender caress. ^ 
“Get to sleep, dear,” she called through the door 
when she had closed it behind her. “You must, 
if you have to go in the morning—it just breaks 
my heart. I don’t know how we’ll bear it without 
you. Father will miss you almost as much as I 
will. Good-night. Don’t bother about that old 
white scarecrow. That’s all it was. Good-night, 
dear, good-night.” 


208 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“Good-night, dear,” answered a plaintive little 
voice. Helen’s hot cheek pressed the pillow and 
tossed from side to side. By and by she turned the 
pillow over; it had grown wet. The wind blew 
about the eaves and blew itself out; she hardly 
heard it. Sleep would not come. She got up and 
laved her burning eyes. Then she sat by the window. 
The storm’s strength was spent at last; the rain 
grew lighter and lighter, until there was but the' 
sound of running water and the drip, drip on the 
tin roof of the porch. Only the thunder rumbling 
in the distance marked the storm’s course; the 
chariots of the gods rolling further and further away, 
till they finally ceased to be heard altogether. The 
clouds parted majestically, and then, between great 
curtains of mist, the day-star was seen shining in 
the east. 

The night was hushed, and the peace that falls 
before dawn was upon the wet, flat lands. Some¬ 
where in the sodden grass a swamped cricket 
chirped. From an outlying flange of the village 
a dog’s howl rose mournfully; was answered by 
another, far away, and by another and another. 
The sonorous chorus rose above the village, died 
away, and quiet fell again. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 209 

Helen sat by the window, no comfort touching 
her heart. Tears coursed her cheeks no longer, 
but her eyes were wide and staring, and her lips 
parted, for the hush was broken by the far clamor 
of the court-house bell ringing in the night. It 
rang, and rang, and rang, and rang. She could 
not breathe. She threw open the window. The 
bell stopped. All was quiet once more. The east 
was growing gray. 

Suddenly out of the stillness there came the 
sound of a horse galloping over a wet road. He was 
coming like mad. Some one for a doctor? No; 
the horse-hoofs grew louder, coming out from the 
town, coming this way, coming faster and faster, 
coming here. There was a splashing and trampling 
in front of the house and a sharp “Whoa!” In the 
dim gray of first dawn she made out a man on a 
foam-flecked horse. He drew up at the gate. 

A window to the right of hers went screeching up. 
She heard the judge clear his throat before he spoke. 

“What is it? That’s you, isn’t it, Wiley? What 
is it?” He took a good deal of time and coughed 
between the sentences. His voice was more than 
ordinarily quiet, and it sounded husky. “What is 
it, Wiley?” 


208 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“Good-night, dear,” answered a plaintive little 
voice. Helen’s hot cheek pressed the pillow and 
tossed from side to side. By and by she turned the 
pillow over; it had grown wet. The wind blew 
about the eaves and blew itself out; she hardly 
heard it. Sleep would not come. She got up and 
laved her burning eyes. Then she sat by the window. 
The storm’s strength was spent at last; the rain 
grew lighter and lighter, until there was but the 
sound of running water and the drip, drip on the 
tin roof of the porch. Only the thunder rumbling 
in the distance marked the storm’s course; the 
chariots of the gods rolling further and further away, 
till they finally ceased to be heard altogether. The 
clouds parted majestically, and then, between great 
curtains of mist, the day-star was seen shining in 
the east. 

The night was hushed, and the peace that falls 
before dawn was upon the wet, flat lands. Some¬ 
where in the sodden grass a swamped cricket 
chirped. From an outlying flange of the village 
a dog’s howl rose mournfully; was answered by 
another, far away, and by another and another. 
The sonorous chorus rose above the village, died 
away, and quiet fell again. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 209 

Helen sat by the window, no comfort touching 
her heart. Tears coursed her cheeks no longer, 
but her eyes were wide and staring, and her lips 
parted, for the hush was broken by the far clamor 
of the court-house bell ringing in the night. It 
rang, and rang, and rang, and rang. She could 
not breathe. She threw open the window. The 
bell stopped. All was quiet once more. The east 
was growing gray. 

Suddenly out of the stillness there came the 
sound of a horse galloping over a wet road. He was 
coming like mad. Some one for a doctor? No; 
the horse-hoofs grew louder, coming out from the 
town, coming this way, coming faster and faster, 
coming here. There was a splashing and trampling 
in front of the house and a sharp “Whoa!” In the 
dim gray of first dawn she made out a man on a 
foam-flecked horse. He drew up at the gate. 

A window to the right of hers went screeching up. 
She heard the judge clear his throat before he spoke. 

“What is it? That’s you, isn’t it, Wiley? What 
is it?” He took a good deal of time and coughed 
between the sentences. His voice was more than 
ordinarily quiet, and it sounded husky. “What is 
it, Wiley?” 


^10 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“Judge, what time did Mr. Harkless leave here 
last night and which way did he go.^’’ ^ 

There was a silence. The judge turned away 
from the window. Minnie was standing just out¬ 
side his door. “It must have been about half-past 
nine, wasn’t it, father.^” she called in a shaking 
voice. “And, you know, Helen thought he went 
west.” 

“Wiley!’* The old man leaned from the sill 
again. 

“Yes!” answered the man on horseback. 

“Wiley, he left about half-past nine—just before 
the storm. They think he went west.” 

“Much obliged. Willetts is so upset he isn’t sure 
of anything.” 

“Wiley!” The .'dd man’s voice shook; Minnie 
began to cry aloud. The horseman wheeled about 
and turned his animal’s head toward town. 
“Wiley!” 

“Yes.” 

“Wiley, they haven't—you don’t think they’ve 
got him?” 

“By God, judge,” said the man on horseback, 
“I’m afraid they have!” 


CHAPTER X 


THE COURT-HOUSE BELL 

T he court-house bell ringing in the night! 
No hesitating stroke of Schofields’ Henry, 
no uncertain touch, was on the rope. A 
loud, wild, hurried clamor pealing out to wake 
the country-side, a rapid clang! clang! clang! that 
struck clear in to the spine. 

The court-house bell had tolled for the death of 
Morton, of Garfield, of Hendricks; had rung joy- 
peals of peace after the war and after political cam¬ 
paigns; but it had rung as it was ringing now only 
three times; once when Hibbard’s mill burned, once 
when Webb Landis killed Sep Bardlock and in¬ 
trenched himself in the lumber-yard and would not 
be taken till he was shot through and through, and 
once when the Rouen accommodation was wrecked 
within twenty yards of the station. 

Why was the bell ringing now? Men and women, 
startled into wide wakefulness, groped to v/indows 
—no red mist hung over town or country. What 

was it? The bell rang on. Its loud alarm beat in- 
211 


212 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


creasingly into men’s hearts and quickened their 
throbbing to the rapid measure of its own. Vague 
forms loomed in the gloaming. A horse, wildly rid¬ 
den, splashed through the town. There were shouts; 
voices called hoarsely. Lamps began to gleam in 
the windows. Half-clad people emerged from their 
houses, men slapping their braces on their shoulders 
as they ran out of doors. Questions were shouted 
into the dimness. 

Then the news went over the town. 

It was cried from yard to yard, from group to 
group, from gate to gate, and reached the further¬ 
most confines. Runners shouted it as they sped 
by; boys panted it, breathless; women with loosened 
hair stumbled into darkling chambers and faltered it 
out to new-wakened sleepers; pale girls clutching 
wraps at their throats whispered it across fences; 
the sick, tossing on their hard beds, heard it. The 
bell clamored it far and near; it spread over the 
country-side; it flew over the wires to distant cities. 
The White-Caps had got Mr. Harkless! 

Lige Willetts had lost track of him out near Bris¬ 
coes’, it was said, and had come in at midnight seek¬ 
ing him. He had found Parker, the “Herald” fore¬ 
man, and Ross Schofield, the typesetter, and Bud 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 213 


Tip worthy, the devil, at work in the printing-room, 
but no sign of Harkless, there or in the cottage. To¬ 
gether these had sought for him and had roused 
others, who had inquired at every house where he 
might have gone for shelter, and they had heard 
nothing. They had watched for his coming during 
the slackening of the storm and he had not come, 
and there was nowhere he could have gone. He 
was missing; only one thing could have happened. 

They had roused up Warren Smith, the prosecutor, 
the missing editor’s most intimate friend in Carlow, 
and Homer, the sheriff, and Jared Wiley, the deputy. 
William Todd had mng the alarm. The first thing 
to do was to find him. After that there would be 
trouble—^if not before. It looked as if there would 
be trouble before. The men tramping up to the 
muddy Square in their shirt-sleeves were bulgy 
about the right hips; and when Homer Tibbs joined 
Lum Landis at the hotel corner, and Landis saw 
that Homer was carrying a shot-gun, Landis went 
back for his. A hastily sworn posse galloped out 
Main Street. Women and children ran into neigh¬ 
bors’ yards and began to cry. Day was coming; 
and, as the light grew, men swore and savagely 
kicked at the palings of fences that they passed. 


214 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


In the foreglow of dawn they gathered in the 
Square and listened to Warren Smith, who made a 
speech from the court-house fence and warned them 
to go slow. They answered him with angry shouts 
and hootings, but he made his big voice heard, 
and bade them do nothing rash; no facts were 
known, he said; it was far from certain that harm 
had been done, and no one knew that the Six-Cross- 
Roads people had done it—even if something had 
happened to Mr. Harkless. He declared that he 
spoke in Harkless’s name. Nothing could distress 
him so much as for them to defy the law, to 
take it out of the proper hands. Justice would 
be done. 

“Yes it will!” shouted a man below him, brand¬ 
ishing the butt of a raw-hide whip above his head. 
“And while you jaw on about it here, he may be 
tied up like a dog in the woods, shot full of holes 
by the men you never lifted a finger to hender, be¬ 
cause you want their votes when you run for circuit 
judge. What are we doin’ here? What’s the good 
of listening to you?” 

There was a yell at this, and those who heard the 
speaker would probably have started for the Cross- 
Roads without further parley, had not a rumor 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 215 


sprung up, which passed so rapidly from man to 
man that within five minutes it was being turbu- 
lently discussed in every portion of the crowd. The 
news came that the two shell-gamblers had wrenched 
a bar out of a window under cover of the storm, 
had broken jail, and were at large. Their threats 
of the day before were remembered now, with con¬ 
vincing vividness. They had sworn repeatedly to 
Bardlock and to the sheriff, and in the hearing of 
others, that they would ‘‘do’’ for the man who 
took their money from them and had them arrested. 
The prosecuting attorney, quickly perceiving the 
value of this complication in holding back the mob 
that was already forming, called Horner from the 
crowd and made him get up on the fence and con¬ 
fess that his prisoners had escaped—^at what time 
he did not know, probably toward the beginning of 
the storm, when it was noisiest. 

“You see,” cried the attorney, “there is nothing 
as yet of which we can accuse the Cross-Roads. If 
our friend has been hurt, it is much more likely that 
these crooks did it. They escaped in time to do it, 
and we all know they were laying for him. You 
want to be mighty careful, fellow-citizens. Horner 
is already in telegraphic communication with every 


216 TBE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

town around here, and we’ll have those men before 
night. All you’ve got to do is to control yourselves 
a little and go home quietly.” He could see that his 
words (except those in reference to returning home 
—no one was going home) made an impression. 
There rose a babble of shouting and argument and 
swearing that grew continually louder, and the faces 
the lawyer looked down on were creased with per¬ 
plexity, and shadowed with an anger that settled 
darker and darker. 

Mr. Ephraim Watts, in spite of all confusion, clai 
as carefully as upon the preceding day, deliberately 
climbed the fence and stood by the lawyer and made 
a single steady gesture with his hand. He was lis¬ 
tened to at once, as his respect for the law was less 
notorious than his irreverence for it, and he had 
been known in Carlow as a customarily reckless man. 
They wanted illegal and desperate advice, and 
quieted down to hear it. He spoke in his profes¬ 
sionally calm voice. 

“Gentlemen, it seems to me that Mr. Smith and 
Mr. Ribshaw” (nodding to the man with the raw- 
hide whip) “are both right. What good are we 
doing here.^ What we want to know is what’s hap¬ 
pened to Mr. Harkless. It looks iust now like the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 217 

shell-men might have done it. Let’s find out what 
they done. Scatter and hunt for him. ’Soon as 
anything is known for certain, Hibbard’s mill whistle 
will blow three times. Keep on looking till it does. 
Theriy^ he finished, with a barely perceptible scorn¬ 
ful smile at the attorney, ^Hhen we can decide on 
what had ought to be done.” 

Six-Cross-Roads lay dark and steaming in the sun 
that morning. The forge was silent, the saloon 
locked up, the roadway deserted, even by the pigs. 
The broken old buggy stood rotting in the mud 
without a single lean, little old man or woman— 
such were the children of the Cross-Roads—to play 
about it. The fields were empty, and the rag-stuffed 
windows blank, under the baleful glance of the 
horsemen who gallopyed by at intervals, muttering 
curses, not always confining themselves to mutter¬ 
ing them. Once, when the deputy sheriff rode 
through alone, a tattered black hound, more wolf 
than dog, half-emerged, growling, from beneath one 
of the tumble-down barns, and was jerked back into 
the darkness by his tail, with a snarl fiercer than his 
own, while a gun-barrel shone for a second as it 
swung for a stroke on the brute’s head. The hound 


218 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


did not yelp or whine when the blow fell. He shut 
his eyes twice, and slunk sullenly back to his 
place. 

The shanties might have received a volley or two 
from some of the mounted bands, exasperated by 
futile searching, had not the escape of Horner’s 
prisoners made the guilt of the Cross-Roads appear 
doubtful in the minds of many. As the morning 
waned, the advocates of the theory that the gam¬ 
blers had made away with Harkless grew in num¬ 
ber. There came a telegram from the Rouen chief 
of police that he had a clew to their whereabouts; 
he thought they had succeeded in reaching Rouen, 
and it began to be generally believed that they had 
escaped by the one-o’clock freight, which had 
stopped to take on some empty cars at a side-track 
a mile northwest of the town, across the fields from 
the Briscoe house. Toward noon a party went out 
to examine the railroad embankment. 

Men began to come back into the village for 
breakfast by twos and threes, though many kept on 
searching the woods, not feeling the need of food, 
or caring if they did. Every grove and clump of 
underbrush, every thicket, was ransacked; the waters 
of the creek, shallow for the most part, but swollen 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 219 

overnight, were dragged at every pool. Nothing was 
found; there was not a sign. 

The bar of the hotel was thronged all morning as 
the returning citizens rapidly made their way 
thither, and those who had breakfasted and were 
going out again paused for internal, as well as ex¬ 
ternal, reinforcement. The landlord, himself re¬ 
turned from a long hunt, set up his whiskey with a 
lavish hand. 

“He was the best man we had, boys,” said Landis, 
as he poured the little glasses full. “We’d ort of 
sent him to the legislative halls of Washington long 
ago. He’d of done us honor there; but we never 
thought of doin’ anything fer him; jest set ’round 
and let him build up the town and give him empty 
thankyes. Drink hearty, gentlemen,” he finished, 
gloomily, “I don’t grudge no liquor to-day—except 
to Lige Willetts.” 

“He was a good man,” said young William Todd, 
whose nose was red, not from the whiskey. “I’ve 
about give up.” 

Schofields’ Henry drew his sleeve across his eyes. 
“He was the only man in this whole city that didn’t 
jab and nag at me when I done my best,” he ex¬ 
claimed, with an increasing break in his utterance. 


220 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

“Many a good word I’ve had from him when no¬ 
body in town done nothin’ but laugh an’ rile an’ 
badger me about my—my bell.” And Schofields’ 
Henry began to cry openly. 

“He was a great hand with the chuldern,” said 
one man. “Always have something to say to ’em 
to make ’em laugh when he went by. ’Talk more 
to them ’n he would to grown folks. Yes, sir.” 

“They knowed him all right,” added another. “I 
reckon all of us did, little and big.” 

“It’s goin’ to seem mighty empty around here,” 
said Ross Schofield. “What’s goin’ to become o’ 
the ‘Herald’ and the party in this district? Where’s 
the man to run either of ’em now. Like as not,” 
he concluded desperately, “the election ’ll go against 
us in the fall.” 

Dibb Zane choked over his four fingers. “We 
might’s well bust up this dab-dusted ole town ef 
he’s gone.” 

“I don’t know what’s come over that Cynthy Tip¬ 
worthy,” said the landlord. “She’s waited table on 
him last two year, and her brother Bud works at the 
‘Herald’ office. She didn’t say a word—only looked 
and looked and looked—like a crazy woman; then 
her and Bud went off together to hunt in the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 221 

-woods. They just tuck hold of each other’s hands 
like-” 

“That ain’t nothin’,” Homer Tibbs broke in. 
“You’d ort to’ve saw old Miz Hathaway, that wid- 
der woman next door to us, when she heard it. He 
had helped her to git her pension; and she tuck on 
worse ’n’ anything I ever hear—lot worse ’n’ when 
Hathaway died.” 

“I reckon there ain’t many crazier than them two 
Bowlders, father and son,” said the postmaster, wip¬ 
ing the drops from his beard as he set his glass on 
the bar. “They rid into town like a couple of wild 
Indians, the old man beatin’ that gray mare o’ 
theirn till she was one big welt, and he ain’t natcherly 
;no cruel man, either. I reckon Lige Willetts better 
keep out of Hartley’s way.” 

“I keep out of no man’s way,” cried a voice be¬ 
hind him. Turning, they saw Lige standing on the 
threshold of the door that led to the street. In his 
hand he held the bridle of the horse he had ridden 
across the sidewalk, and that now stood panting, 
with lowered head, half through the doorway, be¬ 
side his master. Lige was hatless, splashed with 
mud from head to foot; his jaw was set, his teeth 
ground together; his eyes burned under red lids. 



222 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


and his hair lay tossed and damp on his brow. ‘T 
keep out of no man’s way,” he repeated, hoarsely. 
‘T heard you, Mr. Tibbs, but I’ve got too much 
to do, while you loaf and gas and drink over Lum 
Landis’s bar—I’ve got other business than keep¬ 
ing out of Hartley Bowlder’s way. I’m looking 
for John Harkless. He was the best man we had 
in this ornery hole, and he was too good for us, 
and so we’ve maybe let him get killed, and maybe 
I’m to blame. But I’m going to find him, and if 
he’s hurt—damn me! I’m going to have a hand on 
the rope that lifts the men that did it, if I have to go 
to Rouen to put it there! After that I’ll answer for 
my fault, not before!” 

He threw himself on his horse and was gone. 
Soon the room was emptied, as the patrons of the 
bar returned to the search, and only IMr. Wilkerson 
and the landlord remained, the bar being the pro¬ 
fessional oflSce, so to speak, of both. 

Wilkerson had a chair in a corner, where he sat 
chanting a funeral march in a sepulchral murmur, 
allowing a parenthetical hie to punctuate the dirge 
in place of the drum. Whenever a batch of new¬ 
comers entered, he rose to drink with them; and, 
at such times, after pouring off his liquor with a 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 22S 

rich melancholy, shedding tears after every swallow, 
he would make an exploring tour of the room on his 
way back to his corner, stopping to look under each 
chair inquiringly and ejaculate: “Why, where Mn 
he be!” Then, shaking his head, he would observe 
sadly: “Fine young man, he was, too; fine young 
man. Pore fellow! I reckon we hain’t a-goin’ to 
git him.” 

At eleven o’clock. Judge Briscoe dropped wearily 
from his horse at his own gate, and said to a wan 
girl who came running down the walk to meet him: 
“There is nothing, yet. I sent the telegram to your 
mother—to Mrs. Sherwood.” 

Helen turned away without answering. Her face 
was very white and looked pinched about the mouth. 
She went back to where old Fisbee sat on the porch, 
his white head held between his two hands; he was 
rocking himself to and fro. She touched him gently, 
but he did not look up. She spoke to him. 

“There isn’t anything—yet. He sent the tele¬ 
gram to mamma. I shall stay with you, now, no 
matter what you say.” She sat beside him and put 
her head down on his shoulder, and though for a 
moment he appeared not to notice it, when Minnie 
came out on the porch, hearing her father at the 


224 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

door, the old scholar had put his arm about the girl 
and was stroking her fair hair softly. 

Briscoe glanced at them, and raised a warning 
finger to his daughter, and they went tiptoeing into 
the house, where the judge dropped heavily upon a 
sofa with an asthmatic sigh; he was worn and tired. 
Minnie stood before him with a look of pale inquiry, 
and he shook his head. 

“No use to tell them; but I can’t see any hope,” 
he answered her, biting nervously at the end of a 
cigar. “I expect you better bring me some coffee 
in here; I couldn’t take another step to save me, 
I’m too old to tear around the country horseback 
before breakfast, like I have to-day.” 

“Did you send her telegram.^” Minnie asked, as 
he drank the coffee she brought him. She had in¬ 
terpreted “coffee” liberally, and, with the assist¬ 
ance of Mildy Upton (whose subdued nose was 
frankly red and who shed tears on the raspberries), 
had prepared an appetizing table at his elbow. 

“Yes,” responded the judge, “and I’m glad she 
sent it. I talked the other way yesterday, what 
little I said—it isn’t any of our business—but I don't 
think any too much of those people, somehow. She 
thinks she belongs with Fisbee, and I guess she’s 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 2^5 


right. That young fellow must have got along with 
her pretty well, and I’m afraid when she gives up 
she’ll be pretty bad over it; but I guess we all will. 
It’s terribly sudden, somehow, though it’s only what 
everybody half expected would come; only we 
thought it would come from over yonder.” He 
nodded toward the west. “But she’s got to stay 
here with us. Boarding at Sol Tibbs’s with that old 
man won’t do; and she’s no girl to live in two rooms. 
You fix it up with her—you make her stay.” 

“She must,” answered his daughter as she knelt 
beside him and patted his coat and handed him 
several things to eat at the same time. “Mr. Fisbee 
will help me persuade her, now that she’s bound 
to stay in spite of him and the Sherwoods, too. 
I think she is perfectly grand to do it. I’ve always 
thought she was grand—ever since she took me 
under her wing at school when I was terribly ‘coun¬ 
try’ and frightened; but she was so sweet and kind 
she made me forget. She was the pet of the school, 
too, always doing things for the other girls, for 
everybody; looking out for people simply heads 
and heads bigger than herself, and so recklessly 
generous and so funny about it; and always thought¬ 
ful and—and—pleasant ” 


226 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


Minnie was speaking sadly, mechanically; but 
suddenly she broke off with a quick sob, sprang up 
and went to the window; then, turning, cried out: 

‘T don’t believe it! He knew how to take care of 
himself too well. He’d have got away from 
them.” 

Her father shook his head. “Then why hasn’t 
he turned up? He’d have gone home after the 
storm if something bad wasn’t the matter.” 

“But nothing—nothing that bad could have hap¬ 
pened. They haven’t found—any—anything.” 

“But why hasn’t he come back, child?” 

“Well, he’s lying hurt somewhere, that’s all.” 

“Then why haven’t they found him?” 

“I don’t care!” she cried, and choked with the 
words and tossed her dishevelled hair from her 
temples; “it isn’t true. Helen won’t believe it—why 
should I? It’s only a few hours since he was right 
here in our yard, talking to us all. I won’t believe 
it till they’ve searched every stick and stone of 
Six-Cross-Roads and found him.” 

“It wasn’t the Cross-Roads,” said the old gentle¬ 
man, pushing the table away and relaxing his limbs 
on the sofa. “They probably didn’t have anything 
to do with it. We thought they had at first, but 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 227 

everybody’s about come to believe it was those two 
devils that he had arrested yesterday.” 

‘‘Not the Cross-Roads!” echoed Minnie, and she 
began to tremble violently. “Haven’t they been 
out there yet.^” 

“What use? They are out of it, and they can 
thank God they are!” 

“They are not!” she cried excitedly. “They did 
it. It was the White-Caps. We saw them, Helen 
and I.” 

The judge got upon his feet with an oath. He 
had not sworn for years until that morning. 
“What’s this?” he said sharply. 

“I ought to have told you before, but we were 
so frightened, and—and you went off in such a 
rush after Mr. Wiley was here. I never dreamed 
everybody wouldn’t know it was the Cross-Roads; 
that they would think of any one else. And I 
looked for the scarecrow as soon as it was light and 
it was ’way off from where we saw them, and wasn’t 
blown down at all, and Helen saw them in the field 
besides—saw all of them-” 

He interrupted her. “What do you mean? Try 
to tell me about it quietly, child.” He laid his hand 
on her shoulder. 


228 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


She told him breathlessly (while he grew more 
and more visibly perturbed and uneasy, biting his 
cigar to pieces and groaning at intervals) what she 
and Helen had seen in the storm. When she fin¬ 
ished he took a few quick turns about the room with 
his hands thrust deep in his coat pockets, and then, 
charging her to repeat the story to no one, left the 
house, and, forgetting his fatigue, rapidly crossed 
the fields to the point where the bizarre figures of 
the night had shown themselves to the two girls 
at the window. 

The soft ground had been trampled by many feet. 
The boot-prints pointed to the northeast. He 
traced them backward to the southwest through 
the field, and saw where they had come from near 
the road, going northeast. Then, returning, he 
climbed the fence and followed them northward 
through the next field. From there, the next, be¬ 
yond the road that was a continuation of Main 
Street, stretched to the railroad embankment. The 
track, raggedly defined in trampled loam and muddy 
furrow, bent in a direction which indicated that its 
terminus might be the switch where the empty cars 
had stood last night, waiting for the one-o’clock 
freight. Though the fields had been trampled down 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 229 

in many places by the searching parties, he felt 
sure of the direction taken by the Cross-Roads men, 
and he perceived that the searchers had mistaken 
the tracks he followed for those of earlier parties 
in the hunt. On the embankment he saw a number 
of men, walking west and examining the ground 
on each side, and a long line of people following 
them out from town. He stopped. He held the 
fate of Six-Cross-Roads in his hand and he knew it. 

He knew that if he spoke, his evidence would 
damn the Cross-Roads, and that it meant that more 
than the White-Caps would be hurt, for the Cross- 
Roads would fight. If he had beheved that the 
dissemination of his knowledge could have helped 
Harkless, he would have called to the men near 
him at once; but he had no hope that the young 
man was alive. They would not have dragged him 
cut to their shanties wounded, or as a prisoner; such 
a proceeding would have courted detection, and, 
also, they were not that kind; they had been “look¬ 
ing for him” a long time, and their one idea was 
to kill him. 

And Harkless, for all his gentleness, was the sort 
of man, Briscoe believed, who would have to be 
killed before he could be touched. Of one thing 


230 THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 

the old gentleman was sure; the editor had not 
been tied up and whipped while yet alive. In spite 
of his easy manners and geniality, there was a dig¬ 
nity in him that would have made him kill and be 
killed before the dirty fingers of a Cross-Roads 
“White-Cap” could have been laid upon him in 
chastisement. A great many good Americans of 
Carlow who knew him well always Mistered him as 
they would have Mistered only an untitled Morton 
or Hendricks who might have lived amongst them. 
He was the only man the old darky, Uncle Xeno¬ 
phon, had ever addressed as “Marse” since he came 
to Plattville, thirty years ago. 

Briscoe considered it probable that a few people 
were wearing bandages, in the closed shanties over 
to the west to-day. A thought of the number they 
had brought against one man; a picture of the un¬ 
equal struggle, of the young fellow he had liked so 
well, unarmed and fighting hopelessly in a trap, and 
a sense of the cruelty of it, made the hot anger 
surge up in his breast, and he started on again. 
Then he stopped once more. Though long retired 
from faithful service on the bench, he had been all 
his life a serious exponent of the law, and what he 
went to tell meant lawlessness that no one could 


THE GENTLEINIAN FROM INDIANA 231 


hope to check. He knew the temper of the people; 
their long suffering was at an end, and they would 
go over at last and wipe out the Cross-Roads. It 
depended on him. If the mob could be held off 
over to-day, if men’s minds could cool over night, 
the law could strike and the innocent and the hot¬ 
headed be spared from suffering. He would wait; 
he would lay his information before the sheriff; and 
Horner would go quietly with a strong posse, for 
he would need a strong one. He began to retrace 
his steps. 

The men on the embankment were walking 
slowly, bending far over, their eyes fixed on the 
ground. Suddenly one of them stood erect and 
tossed his arms in the air and shouted loudly. Other 
men ran to him, and another far down the track 
repeated the shout and the gesture to another far in 
his rear; this man took it up, and shouted and waved 
to a fourth man, and so they passed the signal 
back to town. There came, almost immediately, 
three long, loud whistles from a mill near the sta¬ 
tion, and the embankment grew black with people 
pouring out from town, while the searchers came 
running from the fields and woods and underbrush 
on both sides of the railway. 


232 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


Briscoe paused for the last time; then he begaa 
to walk slowly toward the embankment. 

The track lay level and straight, not dimming in 
the middle distances, the rails converging to points, 
both northwest and southeast, in the clean-washed 
air, like examples of perspective in a child’s draw¬ 
ing-book. About seventy miles to the west and 
north lay Rouen; and, in the same direction, nearly 
six miles from where the signal was given, the track 
was crossed by a road leading directly south to 
Six-Cross-Roads. 

The embankment had been newly ballasted with 
sand. 'VNdiat had been discovered was a broad 
brown stain on the south slope near the top. There 
were smaller stains above and below; none beyond 
it to left or right; and there were deep boot-prints 
in the sand. IMen were examining the place ex^ 
citedly, talking and gesticulating. It was Lige 
Willetts who had found it. His horse was tethered 
to a fence near by, at the end of a lane through a 
cornfield. Jared Wiley, the deputy, was talking 
to a group near the stain, explaining. 

“You see them two must have knowed about the 
one-o’clock freight, and that it was to stop here to 
take on the empty lumber cars. I don’t know how 


THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 233 


they knowed it, but they did. It was this way: 
when they dropped from the window, they beat 
through the storm, straight for this side-track. At 
the same time Mr. Harkless leaves Briscoes’ goin’ 
west. It begins to rain. He cuts across to the 
railroad to have a sure footing, and strikin’ for the 
deepo for shelter—near place as any except Briscoes’ 
where he’d said good-night already and prob’ly 
don’t wish to go back, ’fear of givin’ trouble or 
keepin’ ’em up—anybody can understand that. He 
comes along, and gets to where we are precisely at 
the time they do, them cornin’ from town, him 
strikin’ for it. They run right into each other. 
That’s what happened. They re-co^-nized him and 
raised up on him and let him have it. What they 
done it with, I don’t know; we took everything in 
that line off of ’em; prob’ly used railroad iron; 
and what they done with him afterwards we don’t 
know; but we will by night. They’ll sweat it out 
of ’em up at Rouen when they get ’em.” 

‘T reckon maybe some of us might help,” re¬ 
marked Mr. Watts, reflectively. 

Jim Bardlock swore a violent oath. “That’s the 
talk!” he shouted. “Ef I ain’t the first man of 
this crowd to set my foot in Roowun, an’ first to 


234 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


beat in that jail door, an’ take ’em out an’ hang 
’em by the neck till they’re dead, dead, dead, I’m 
not Town Marshal of Plattville. County of Carlow, 
State of Indiana, and the Lord have mercy on our 
souls!” 

Tom Martin looked at the brown stain and 
quickly turned away; then he went back slowly to 
the village. On the way he passed Warren Smith. 

“Is it so?” asked the lawyer. 

Martin answered with a dry throat. He looked 
out dimly over the sunlit fields, and swallowed once 
or twice. “Yes, it’s so. There’s a good deal of it 
there. Little more than a boy he was.” The old 
fellow passed his seamy hand over his eyes without 
concealment. “Peter ain’t very bright, sometimes, 
it seems to me,” he added, brokenly; “overlook 
Bodeffer and Fisbee and me and all of us old husks, 
and—and—” he gulped suddenly, then finished— 
“and act the fool and take a boy that’s the best we 
had. I wish the Almighty would take Peter off the 
gate; he ain’t fit fer it.” 

When the attorney reached the spot where the 
crowd was thickest, way was made for him. The 
old colored man, Xenophon, approached at the 
same time, leaning on a hickory stick and bent 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 235 

very far over, one hand resting on his hip as if to 
ease a rusty joint. The negro’s age was an incentive 
to fable; from his appearance he might have known 
the prophets, and he wore that hoary look of un¬ 
earthly wisdom many decades of superstitious 
experience sometimes give to members of his race. 
His face, so tortured with wrinkles that it might 
have been made of innumerable black threads 
woven together, was a living mask of the mystery 
of his blood. Harkless had once said that Uncle 
Xenophon had visited heaven before Swedenborg 
and hell before Dante. To-day, as he slowly limped 
over the ties, his eyes were bright and dry under 
the solemn lids, and, though his heavy nostrils were 
unusually distended in the effort for regular breath¬ 
ing, the deeply puckered lips beneath them were 
set firmly. 

He stopped and looked at the faces before him. 
When he spoke his voice was gentle, and though 
the tremulousness of age harped on the vocal strings, 
it was rigidly controlled. “Kin some kine gelmun,” 
he asked, “please t’be so good ez t’ show de ole 
main whuh de W’ite-Caips is done shoot Marse 
Hawkliss?” 

“Here was where it happened, Uncle Zen,” an- 


236 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

swered Wiley, leaning him forward. “Here is the 
stain.” 

Xenophon bent over the spot on the sand, making 
little odd noises in his throat. Then he painfully 
resumed his former position. “Dass his blood,” 
he said, in the same gentle, quavering tone. “Dass 
my bes’ frien’ whut lay on de groun’ whuh yo 
staind, gelmun.” 

There was a pause, and no one spoke. 

“Dass whuh day laid ’im an’ dass whuh he lie,” 
the old negro continued. “Dey shot ’im in de fiel’s. 
Dey ain’ shot ’im hear—yondeh dey drugged ’im, 
but dis whuh he lie.” He bent over again, then 
knelt, groaningly, and placed his hand on the stain, 
one would have said, as a man might place his 
hand over a heart to see if it still beat. He was 
motionless, with the air of hearkening. 

“Marse, honey, is you gone.?^” He raised his 
voice as if calling, “Is you gone, suh.^^—Marse.^” 

He looked up at the circle about him, and, still 
kneeling, not taking his hand from the sand, seem¬ 
ing to wait for a sign, to listen for a voice, he said: 
“Whafo’ you gelmun think de good Lawd summon 
Marse Hawkliss.^ Kaze he de mos’ fittes’.^ You 
know^ dat man he ketch me in de cole night, wintuh 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 237 

’fo’ lais’, stealin’ ’is wood. You know whut he done 
t’de ole thief? Tek an’ buil’ up big fiah een ole Zen’ 
shainty; say, ‘He’p yo’se’f an’ welcome. Reckon 
you hongry, too, ain’ you, Xenophon?’ Tek an’ 
feed me. Tek an’ tek keer o’ me ev’ since. Ah 
pump de baith full in de mawin’; mek ’is bed; pull 
de weeds out’n of de front walk—dass all. He tek 
me in. When Ah aisk ’im ain’ he fraid keep ole 
thief he say, jesso: ‘Dass all my fault, Xenophon; 
ought look you up long ’go; ought know long ’go 
you be cole dese baid nights. Reckon Ahm de 
thievenest one us two, Xenophon, keepin’ all dis 
wood stock’ up when you got none,’ he say, jesso. 
Tek me in; say he lahk a thief. Pay me sala’y. 
Feed me. Dass de main whut de Caips gone shot 
lais’ night.” He raised his head sharply, and the 
mystery in his gloomy eyes intensified as they 
opened wide and stared at the sky, unseeingly. 

‘Tse bawn wid a cawl!” he exclaimed, loudly. 
His twisted frame was braced to an extreme tension. 
‘Tse bawn wid a cawl! De blood anssuh!” 

“It wasn’t the Cross-Roads, Uncle Xenophon,” 
said Warren Smith, laying his hand on the old man’s 
shoulder. 

Xenophon rose to his feet. He stretched a long. 


238 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


bony arm straight to the west, where the Cross- 
Roads lay; stood rigid and silent, like a seer; then 
spoke: 

“De men whut shot Marse Hawkliss lies yondeh, 
hidin’ f’um de light o’ day. An’ him ''—he swerved 
his whole rigid body till the arm pointed northwest 
—“he lies yondeh. You won’t find him heah. Dey 
fought ’im een de fiel’s an’ dey druggen ’im heah. 
Dis whuh dey lay ’im down. Ise bawn wid a 
cawl!” 

There were exclamations from the listeners, for 
Xenophon spoke as one having authority. Sud¬ 
denly he turned and pointed his outstretched hand 
full at Judge Briscoe. 

“An’ dass de main,” he cried, “dass de main kin 
tell you Ah speak de trufe.” 

Before he was answered, Eph Watts looked at 
Briscoe keenly and then turned to Lige Willetts 
and whispered: “Get on your horse, ride in, and 
ring the court-house bell like the devil. Do as I 
say!” 

Tears stood in the judge’s eyes. “It is so,” he 
said, solemnly. “He speaks the truth. I didn’t 
mean to tell it to-day, but somehow—” He paused. 
“The hounds I” he cried. “They deserve it! My 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 239 


daughter saw them crossing the fields in the night— 
‘^aw them climb the fence, hoods, gowns, and all, a 
big crowd of them. She and the lady who is visiting 
us saw them, saw them plainly. The lady saw them 
several times, clear as day, by the flashes of light¬ 
ning—the scoundrels were coming this way. They 
must have been dragging him with them then. He 
couldn’t have had a show for his life amongst them. 
Do what you like—maybe they’ve got him at the 
Cross-Roads. If there’s a chance of it—dead or 
alive—bring him back!” 

A voice rang out above the clamor that followed 
the judge’s speech. 

“‘Bring him back!’ God could, maybe, but He 
won’t. Who’s travelling my way.^ I go west!” 
Hartley Bowlder had ridden his sorrel up the em¬ 
bankment, and the horse stood between the rails. 

There was an angry roar from the crowd; the 
prosecutor pleaded and threatened unheeded; and as 
for the deputy sheriff, he declared his intention of 
taking with him all who wished to go as his posse. 
Eph Watts succeeded in making himself heard above 
the tumult. 

“The Square!” he shouted. “Start from the 
Square. We want everybody, and we’ll need them* 


£40 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 
We want every one in Carlow to be implicated in 
this posse.” 

‘'They will be!” shouted a farmer. “Don’t you 
worry about that.” 

“We want to get into some sort of shape,” cried 
Eph. 

“Shape, hell!” said Hartley Bowlder. 

There was a hiss and clang and rattle behind him, 
and a steam whistle shrieked. The crowd divided, 
and Hartley’s sorrel jumped just in time as the west¬ 
bound accommodation rushed through on its way to 
Rouen. From the rear platform leaned the sheriff, 
Homer, waving his hands frantically as he fiew by, 
but no one understood—or cared—what he said, or, 
in the general excitement, even wondered why he 
was leaving the scene of his duty at such a time* 
When the train had dwindled to a dot and disap¬ 
peared, and the noise of its rush grew faint, the 
court-house bell was heard ringing, and the mob 
was piling pell-mell into the village to form on the 
Square. The judge stood alone on the embank' 
ment. 

“That settles it,” he said aloud, gloomily, watch¬ 
ing the last figures. He took off his hat and pushed 
back the thick, white hair from his forehead. “Noth- 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA ^241 


ing to do but wait. Might as well go home for that. 
Blast it!” he exclaimed, impatiently. “I don’t want 
to go there. It’s too hard on the little girl. If she 
hadn’t come till next week she’d never have known 
John Harkless.” 


CHAPTER XI 


JOHN brown’s body 

LL morning horsemen had been galloping 



through Six-Cross-Roads, sometimes singly^ 


oftener in company. At one-o’clock the 


last posse passed through on its return to the county- 
seat, and after that there was a long, complete si¬ 
lence, while the miry corners were undisturbed by a 
single hoof-beat. No unkempt colt nickered from 
his musty stall; the sparse young com that was used 
to rasp and chuckle greenly stood rigid in the fields. 
Up the Plattville pike despairingly cackled one old 
hen, with her wabbling sailor run, smit with a 
superstitious horror of nothing, in the stillness; she 
hid herself in the shadow underneath a rickety barn, 
and her shrieking ceased. 

Only on the Wimby farm were there signs of life. 
The old lady who had sent Harkless roses sat by 
the window all morning and wiped her eyes, watch¬ 
ing the horsemen ride by; sometimes they would 
hail her and tell her there was nothing yet. About 


242 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 243 
two-o’clock, her husband rattled up in a buckboard, 
and got out the late, and more authentic, Mr. 
Wimby’s shot-gun, which he carefully cleaned and 
oiled, in spite of its hammerless and quite useless 
condition, sitting, meanwhile, by the window oppo¬ 
site his wife, and often looking up from his work to 
shake his weak fist at his neighbors’ domiciles and 
creak decrepit curses and denunciations. 

But the Cross-Roads was ready. It knew what 
was coming now. Frightened, desperate, sullen, it 
was ready. 

The afternoon wore on, and lengthening shadows 
fell upon a peaceful—one would have said, a sleep¬ 
ing—country. The sun-dried pike, already dusty, 
stretched its serene length between green borders 
flecked with purple and yellow and white weed- 
flowers; and the tree shadows were not shade, but 
warm blue and lavender glows in the general per¬ 
vasion of still, bright light, the sky curving its deep, 
unburnished, penetrable blue over all, with no single 
drift of fleece upon it to be reflected in the creek that 
wound along past willow and sycamore. A wood¬ 
pecker’s telegraphy broke the quiet like a volley of 
pistol shots. 

But far eastward on the pike there slowly devel- 


244 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


oped a soft, white haze. It grew denser and larger. 
Gradually it rolled nearer. Dimly behind it could 
be discerned a darker, moving nucleus that extended 
far back upon the road. A heavy tremor began to 
stir the air—faint manifold sounds, a waxing, in¬ 
creasing, multitudinous rumor. 

The pike ascended a long, slight slope leading 
west up to the Cross-Roads. From a thicket of 
iron-weed at the foot of this slope was thrust the 
hard, lean visage of an undersized girl of fourteen. 
Her fierce eyes examined the approaching cloud of 
dust intently. A redness rose under the burnt yel¬ 
low skin and colored the wizened cheeks. 

They were coming. 

She stepped quickly out of the tangle, and darted 
up the road, running with the speed of a fieet little 
terrier, not opening her lips, not calling out, but 
holding her two thin hands high above her head. 
That was all. But Birnam wood was come to Dun- 
sinane at last, and the messenger sped. Out of the 
weeds in the corners of the snake fence, in the upper 
part of the rise, silently lifted the heads of men 
whose sallowness became a sickish white as the chOd 
flew by. 

The mob was carefully organized. They had 


THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 245 


taken their time and had prepared everything de¬ 
liberately, knowing that nothing could stop them. 
No one had any thought of concealment; it was all 
as open as the light of day, all done in the broad 
sunshine. Nothing had been determined as to what 
was to be done at the Cross-Roads more definite 
than that the place was to be wiped out. That was 
comprehensive enough; the details were quite cer¬ 
tain to occur. They were all on foot, marching in 
fairly regular ranks. In front walked Mr. Watts, 
the man Harkless had abhorred in a public spirit 
and befriended in private—to-day he was a hero and 
a leader, marching to avenge his professional op¬ 
pressor and personal brother. Cool, unruffled, and, 
to outward vision, unarmed, marching the miles in 
his brown frock coat and generous linen, his care¬ 
fully creased trousers neatly turned up out of the 
dust, he led the way. On one side of him were the 
two Bowlders, on the other was Lige Willetts, Mr. 
Watts preserving peace between the two young men 
with perfect tact and sang-froid. 

They kept good order and a similitude of quiet for 
so many, except far to the rear, where old Wilkerson 
was bringing up the tail of the procession, dragging 
a wretched yellow dog by a slip-noose fastened 


5^46 THE GENTLE]\iAN FROM INDIANA 


around the poor cur’s protesting neck, the knot 
carefully arranged under his right ear. In spite of 
every command and protest, Wilkerson had marched 
the whole way uproariously singing, “John Brown’s 
Body.” 

The sun was in the west when they came in sight 
of the Cross-Roads, and the cabins on the low slope 
stood out angularly against the radiance beyond. 
As they beheld the hated settlement, the heretofore 
orderly ranks showed a disposition to depart from 
the steady advance and rush the shanties. Willetts, 
the Bowlders, Parker, Ross, Schofield, and fifty 
others did, in fact, break away and set a sharp pace 
up the slope. 

Watts tried to call them back. “What’s the use 
your gettin’ killed.^” he shouted. 

“Why not.^” answered Lige, who, like the others, 
was increasing his speed when old “Wimby” rose 
up suddenly from the roadside ahead of them, and 
motioned th^ frantically to go back. “They’re 
laid out along the fence, waitin’ fer ye,” he warned 
them. “Git out the road. Come by the fields. 
Fer the Lord’s sake, spread!” Then, as suddenly 
as he had appeared, he dropped down into the weeds 
again. Lige and those with him paused, and the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 247 

whole body came to a halt while the leaders con¬ 
sulted. There was a sound of metallic clicking and 
a thin rattle of steel. From far to the rear came the 
voice of old Wilkerson: 

“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the ground, 

John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the ground—“ 

A few near him, as they stood waiting, began to 
take up the burden of the song, singing in slow time 
like a dirge; then those further away took it up; it 
spread, reached the leaders; they, too, began to sing, 
taking off their hats as they joined in; and soon the 
whole concourse, solemn, earnest, and uncovered, 
was singing—a thunderous requiem for John Hark- 
iess. 

The sun was swinging lower and the edges of the 
world were embroidered with gold while that deep 
volume of sound shook the air, the song of a stern, 
savage, just cause—sung, perhaps, as some of the 
ancestors of these men sang with Hampden before 
the bristling walls of a hostile city. It had iron and 
steel in it. The men lying on their guns in the am¬ 
buscade along the fence heard the dirge rise and 
grow to its mighty fulness, and they shivered. One 
of them, posted nearest the advance, had his rifle 
carefully levelled at Lige Willetts, a fair target in the 


^48 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

road. When he heard the singing, he turned to the 
man next behind him and laughed harshly: ‘T 
reckon we’ll see a big jamboree in hell to-night, 
huhr 

The huge murmur of the chorus expanded, and 
gathered in rhythmic strength, and swelled to power, 
and rolled and thundered across the plain. 

“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the ground, 

John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the ground, 

John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the ground. 

His soul goes marching on! 

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! 

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! 

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! 

His soul goes marching on!” 


A gun spat from the higher ground, and Wil¬ 
letts dropped where he stood, but was up again in 
a second, with a red line across his forehead where 
the ball had grazed his temple. Then the mob 
spread out like a fan, hundreds of men climbing the 
fence and beginning the advance through the fields, 
closing on the ambuscade from both sides. Mr. 
Watts, wading through the high grass in the field 
north of the road, perceived the barrel of a gun shin¬ 
ing from a bush some distance in front of him, and, 
although in the same second no weapon was seen in 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 249 

his hand, discharged a revolver at the bush behind 
the gun. Instantly ten or twelve men leaped from 
their hiding-places along the fences of both fields, 
and, firing hurriedly and harmlessly into the scat¬ 
tered ranks of the oncoming mob, broke for the 
shelter of the houses, where their fellows were 
posted. Taken on the flanks and from the rear, 
there was but one thing for them to do to keep from 
being hemmed in and shot or captured. (They ex¬ 
cessively preferred being shot.) With a wild, high, 
joyous yell, sounding like the bay of young hounds 
breaking into view of their quarry, the Plattville 
men followed. 

The most eastward of the debilitated edifices of 
Six-Cross-Roads was the saloon, which bore the 
painted legends: on the west wall, ‘‘Last Chance”; 
on the east wall, “First Chance.” Next to this, and 
separated by two or three acres of weedy vacancy 
from the comers where the population centred 
thickest, stood—if one may so predicate of a build¬ 
ing which leaned in seven directions—the house of 
Mr. Robert Skillett, the proprietor of the saloon. 
Both buildings were shut up as tight as their state 
of repair permitted. As they were furthest to the 
east, they formed the nearest shelter, and to them 


250 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

the Cross-Roaders bent their flight, though they 
stopped not here, but disappeared behind Skillett’s 
shanty, putting it between them and their pursuers, 
whose guns were beginning to speak. The fugitives 
had a good start, and, being the picked runners 
of the Cross-Roads, they crossed the open, weedy 
acres in safety and made for their homes. Every 
house had become a fort, and the defenders would 
have to be fought and torn out one by one. As the 
guns sounded, a woman in a shanty near the forge 
began to scream, and kept on screaming. 

On came the farmers and the men of Plattville. 
They took the saloon at a run; battered down the 
crazy doors with a fence-rail, and swarmed inside 
like busy insects, making the place hum like a hive, 
but with the hotter industries of destruction. It 
was empty of life as a tomb, but they beat and tore 
and battered and broke and hammered and shat¬ 
tered like madmen; they reduced the tawdry interior 
to a mere chaos, and came pouring forth laden with 
trophies of ruin. And then there was a charry smell 
in the air, and a slender feather of smoke floated up 
from a second-story window. 

At the same time Watts led an assault on the ad¬ 
joining house—an assault which c^jne to a sudden 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 251 

pause, for, from cracks in the front wall, a squirrel- 
rifle and a shot-gun snapped and banged, and the 
crowd fell back in disorder. Homer Tibbs had a hat 
blown away, full of buck-shot holes, while Mr. 
Watts solicitously examined a small aperture in the 
skirts of his brown coat. The house commanded 
the road, and the rush of the mob into the village 
was checked, but only for the instant. 

A rickety woodshed, which formed a portion of 
the Skillett mansion, closely joined the ‘‘Last 
Chance” side of the family place of business. 
Scarcely had the guns of the defenders sounded, 
when, with a loud shout, Lige Willetts leaped from 
an upper window on that side of the burning saloon 
and landed on the woodshed, and, immediately 
climbing the roof of the house itself, applied a fiery 
brand to the time-worn clapboards. Ross Schofield 
dropped on the shed, close behind him, his arm lov¬ 
ingly enfolding a gallon jug of whiskey, which he 
emptied (not without evident regret) upon the clap¬ 
boards as Lige fired them. Flames burst forth al¬ 
most instantly, and the smoke, uniting with that 
now rolling out of every window of the saloon, went 
up to heaven in a cumbrous, gray column. 

As the flames began to spread, there was a rapid 


252 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

fusillade from the rear of the house, and a hundred 
men and more, who had kept on through the fields 
to the north, assailed it from behind. Their shots 
passed clear through the flimsy partitions, and there 
was a horrid screeching, like a beast’s howls, from 
within. The front door was thrown open, and a 
lean, fierce-eyed girl, with a case-knife in her hand, 
ran out in the face of the mob. At sound of the 
shots in the rear they had begun to advance on the 
house a second time, and Hartley Bowlder was the 
nearest man to the girl. With awful words, and 
shrieking inconceivably, she made straight at Hart¬ 
ley, and attacked him with the knife. She struck at 
him again and again, and, in her anguish of hate and 
iear, was so extraordinary a spectacle that she 
gained for her companions the four or five seconds 
they needed to escape from the house. As she 
hurled herself alone at the oncoming torrent, they 
sped from the door unnoticed, sprang over the fence, 
and reached the open lots to the west before they 
were seen by Willetts from the roof. 

‘‘Don’t let ’em fool you!” he shouted. “Look to 
your left! There they go! Don’t let’em get away.” 

The Cross-Roaders were running across the field. 
They were Bob Skillett and his younger brother, 


THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 253 

and Mr. Skillett was badly damaged: he seemed to 
be holding his jaw on his face with both hands. The 
girl turned, and sped after them. She was over the 
fence almost as soon as they were, and the three ran 
in single file, the girl last. She was either magnifi¬ 
cently sacrificial and fearless, or she cunningly cal¬ 
culated that the regulators would take no chances 
of killing a woman-child, for she kept between their 
guns and her two companions, trying to cover and 
shield the latter with her frail body. 

“Shoot, Lige,” called Watts. “If we fire from 
here we’ll hit the girl. Shoot!” 

Willetts and Ross Schofield were still standing on 
the roof, at the edge, out of the smoke, and both 
fired at the same time. The fugitives did not turn; 
they kept on running, and they had nearly reached 
the other side of the field, when suddenly, without 
any premonitory gesture, the elder Skillett dropped 
flat on his face. The Cross-Roaders stood by each 
other that day, for four or five men ran out of the 
nearest shanty into the open, lifted the prostrate 
figure from the ground, and began to carry it back 
with them. But Mr. Skillett was alive; his curses 
were heard above all other sounds. Lige and Scho¬ 
field fired again, and one of the rescuers staggered. 


254 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

Nevertheless, as the two men slid down from the 
roof, the burdened Cross-Roaders were seen to 
break into a run; and at that, with another yell, 
fiercer, wilder, more joyous than the first, the Platt- 
ville men followed. 

The yell rang loudly in the ears of old Wilkerson, 
who had remained back in the road, and at the 
same instant he heard another shout behind him. 
Mr. Wilkerson had not shared in the attack, but, 
greatly preoccupied with his own histrionic affairs, 
was proceeding up the pike alone—except for the 
imhappy yellow mongrel, still dragged along by the 
slip-noose—and alternating, as was his natural 
wont, from one fence to the other; crouching behind 
every bush to fire an imaginary rifle at his dog, 
and then springing out, with triumphant bellowings, 
to fall prone upon the terrified animal. It was 
after one of these victories that a shout of warning 
was raised behind him, and Mr. W^ilkerson, by 
grace of the god Bacchus, rolling out of the way in 
time to save his life, saw a horse dash by him— a, 
big, black horse whose polished flanks were dripping 
with lather. Warren Smith was the rider. He was 
waving a slip of yellow paper high in the air. 

He rode up the slope, and drew rein beyond the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 255 


burning buildings, just ahead of those foremost in 
the pursuit. He threw his horse across the road to 
oppose their progress, rose in his stirrups, and 
waved the paper over his head. “Stop!” he roared, 
“Give me one minute. Stop!” He had a grand 
voice; and he was known in many parts of the State 
for the great bass roar with which he startled his 
juries. To be heard at a distance most men lift the 
pitch of their voices; Smith lowered his an octave or 
two, and the result was hke an earthquake playing 
an organ in a catacomb. 

“Stop!” he thundered. “Stop!” 

In answer, one of the flying Cross-Roaders turned 
and sent a bullet whisthng close to him. The law¬ 
yer paused long enough to bow deeply in satirical 
response; then, flourishing the paper, he roared 
again: “Stop! A mistake! I have news! Stop, I 
say! Homer has got them!” 

To make himself heard over that tempestuous 
advance was a feat; for him, moreover, whose 
counsels had so lately been derided, to interest the 
pursuers at such a moment enough to make them 
listen—to find the word—was a greater; and by the 
word, and by gestures at once vehemently im¬ 
perious and imploring, to stop them was stiU greater; 


256 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

but he did it. He had come at just the moment 
before the moment that would have been too late. 
They all heard him. They all knew, too, he was 
not trying to save the Cross-Roads as a matter of 
duty, because he had given that up before the mob 
left Plattville. Indeed, it was a question if, at the 
last, he had not tacitly approved; and no one feared 
indictments for the day’s work. It would do no 
harm to listen to what he had to say. The work 
could wait; it would “keep” for five minutes. They 
began to gather around him, excited, flushed, per¬ 
spiring, and smelling of smoke. Hartley Bowlder, 
won by Lige’s desperation and intrepidity, was 
helping the latter tie up his head; no one else was 
hurt. 

“What is it?” they clamored impatiently. “Speak 
quick!” There was another harmless shot from 
a fugitive, and then the Cross-Roaders, divining 
that the diversion was in their favor, secured them¬ 
selves in their decrepit fastnesses and held their 
fire. Meanwhile, the flames crackled cheerfully in 
Platt ville ears. No matter what the prosecutor had 
to say, at least the Skillett saloon and homestead 
were gone, and Bob Skillett and one other would be 
sick enough to be good for a while. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 257 

‘‘Listen/’ cried Warren Smith, and, rising in his 
stirrups again, read the missive in his hand, a West¬ 
ern Union telegraph form. “Warren Smith, Platt- 
ville,” was the direction. “Found both shell-men. 
Police familiar with both, and both wanted here. 
One arrested at noon in a second-hand clothes store, 
wearing Harkless’s hat, also trying dispose torn 
full-dress coat known to have been worn by Hark- 
less last night. Stains on lining believed blood. 
Second man found later at freight-yards in empty 
lumber car left Plattville 1 p.m., badly hurt, shot, 
and bruised. Supposed Harkless made hard fight. 
Hurt man taken to hospital unconscious. Will die. 
Hope able question him first and discover where¬ 
abouts body. Other man refuses talk so far. Check 
any movement Cross-Roads. This clears Skillett, 
etc. Come over on 9.15.” 

The telegram was signed by Horner and by Bar¬ 
rett, the superintendent of police at Rouen. 

“It’s all a mistake, boys,” the lawyer said, as he 
handed the paper to Watts and Parker for inspec¬ 
tion. “The ladies at the judge’s were mistaken, 
that’s all, and this proves it. It’s easy enough to 
understand: they were frightened by the storm, and, 
watching a fence a quarter-mile away by flashes of 


258 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


lightning, any one would have been confused, and 
imagined all the horrors on earth. I don’t deny but 
what I believed it for a while, and I don’t deny but 
the Cross-Roads is pretty tough, but you’ve done a 
good deal here already, to-day, and we’re saved in 
time from a mistake that would have turned out 
mighty bad. This settles it. Horner got a wire 
from Rouen to come over there, soon as they got 
track of the first man; that was when we saw him 
on the Rouen accommodation.” 

A slightly cracked voice, yet a huskily tuneful 
one, was lifted quaveringly on the air from the 
roadside, where an old man and a yellow dog sat 
in the dust together, the latter reprieved at the 
last moment, his surprised head rakishly garnished 
with a hasty wreath of dog-fennel daisies. 

“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the ground. 

While we go marching on!” 

Three-quarters of an hour later, the inhabitants 
of the Cross-Roads, saved, they knew not how; 
guilty; knowing nothing of the fantastic pendulum 
of opinion, which, swung by the events of the day, 
had marked the fatal moment of guilt, now on others, 
now on them, who deserved it—these natives and 
refugees, conscious of atrocity, dumfounded by a 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 259 


miracle, thinking the world gone mad, hovered to¬ 
gether in a dark, ragged mass at the crossing cor¬ 
ners, while the skeleton of the rotting buggy in the 
slough rose behind them against the face of the 
west. They peered with stupified eyes through the 
smoky twilight. 

From afar, faintly tlirough the gloaming, came 
mournfully to their ears the many-voiced refrain— 
fainter, fainter: 

“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the ground, 

John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the ground, 

John Brown’s body lies—mould— 

„ . . . . we go inarch .... on.” 


CHAPTER XII 


JERRY THE TELLER 

A t midnight a small brougham stopped at 
the gates of the city hospital in Rouen. 
A short distance ahead, the lamps of a 
cab, drawn up at the curbing, made tw^o dull orange 
sparks under the electric light swinging over the 
street. A cigarette described a brief parabola as 
it was tossed from the brougham, and a short 
young man jumped out and entered the gates, then 
paused and spoke to the driver of the cab. 

“Did you bring Mr. Barrett here.^” 

“Yes, sir,” answered the driver; “him and two 
other gentlemen.” 

i Lighting another cigarette, from which he drew 
but two inspirations before he threw it aw’^ay, the 
young man proceeded quickly up the walk. As he 
ascended the short flight of steps which led to the 
main doors, he panted a little, in a way which sug¬ 
gested that (although his white waistcoat outlined 

an ellipse still respectable) a crescendo of portlines.^ 
260 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 261 


♦v^as playing diminuendo with his youth. And, 
though his walk was brisk, it was not lively. The 
expression of his very red face indicated that his 
briskness was spurred by anxiety, and a fattish 
groan he emitted on the top step added the impres¬ 
sion that his comfortable body protested against the 
mental spur. In the hall he removed his narrow- 
brimmed straw hat and presented a rotund and 
amiable head, from the top of which his auburn 
hair seemed to retire with a sense of defeat; it fell 
back, however, not in confusion, but in perfect 
order, and the sparse pink mist left upcm his crown 
gave, by a supreme effort, an effect of arrangement, 
so that an imaginative observer would have declared 
that there was a part down the middle. The gentle¬ 
man’s plump face bore a grave and troubled ex¬ 
pression, and gravity and trouble were patent in all 
the lines of his figure and in every gesture; in the 
way he turned his head; in the uneasy shifting of 
his hat from one hand to the other and in his fanning 
himself with it in a nervous fashkm; and in his 
small, blue eyes, which did not twinkle behind his 
rimless glasses and looked imused to not twinkling. 
His gravity clothed him like an ill-fitting coat; or, 
possibly, he might have reminded the imaginative 


262 THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 

observer, just now conjured up, of a music-box set 
to turning its cylinder backwards. 

He spoke to an attendant, and was directed to an 
<^ce, which he entered without delay. There were 
five men in the room, three of them engaged in con¬ 
versation near the door; another, a yoimg surgeon, 
was writing at a desk; the fifth drowsily nodding 
(Ml a sofa. The newcomer bowed as he entered. 

“Mr. Barrett?” he said inquiringly. 

One of the men near the door turned about. 
“Yes, sir,” he answered, with a stem disfavor of 
the applicant; a disfavor possibly a perquisite of his 
office. “What’s wanted?” 

“I think I have met you,” returned the other. 
“My name is Meredith.” 

Mr. Barrett probably did not locate the meeting, 
but the name proved an open sesame to his genial¬ 
ity, for he melted at once, and saying: “Of course, 
of course, Mr. Meredith; did you want a talk with 
me?” clasped the young man’s hand confidentially 
in his, and, with an appearance of assuring him that 
whatever the atrocity which had occurred in the 
Meredith household it should be discreetly handled 
and hushed up, indicated a disposition to conduct 
him toward a more appropriate apartment for the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 263 

rehearsal of scandal. The young man accepted the 
hand-clasp with some resignation, but rejected the 
suggestion of privacy. 

“A telegram from Plattville reached me half an 
hour ago,” he said. ‘T should have had it sooner, 
but I have been in the country all day.” 

The two men who had been talking with the 
superintendent turned quickly, and stared at the 
speaker. He went on: ‘‘Mr. Harkless was an old— 
and—” He broke off, with a sudden, sharp chok¬ 
ing, and for a moment was unable to control an 
emotion that seemed, for some reason, as surprising 
and unbefitting, in a person of his rubicund presence, 
as was his gravity. An astonished tear glittered 
in the corner of his eye. The grief of the gayer 
sorts of stout people appears, sometimes, to dum- 
foimd even themselves. The young man took off 
his glasses and wiped them slowly. “—An old and 
very dear friend of mine.” He replaced the glasses 
insecurely upon his nose. “I telephoned to your 
headquarters, and they said you had come here.” 

“Yes, sir; yes, sir,” the superintendent of police 
responded, cheerfully. “These two gentlemen are 
from Plattville; Mr. Smith just got in. They mighty 
near had big trouble down there to-day, but I guess 


264 THE GENTLEJVIAN FROM INDIANA 


we’ll settle things for ’em up here. Let me make 
you acquainted with my friend, Mr. Smith, and my 
friend, Mr. Horner. Gentlemen, my friend, Mr. 
Meredith, one of our well-known citizens.” 

“You hear it from the police, gentlemen,” added 
Mr. Meredith, perking up a little. “I know Dr. 
Gay.” He nodded to the surgeon. 

“I suppose you have heard some of the circum¬ 
stances—those that we’ve given out,” said Barrett. 

“I read the account in the evening paper. I had 
heard of Harkless, of Carlow, before; but it never 
occurred to me that it was my friend—I had heard 
he was abroad—until I got this telegram from a 
relative of mine who happened to be down there.” 

“Well,” said the superintendent, “your friend 
made a mighty good fight before he gave up. The 
Teller, that’s the man we’ve got out here, he’s so 
hacked up and shot and battered his mother 
wouldn’t know him, if she wanted to; at least, that’s 
what Gay, here, says. We haven’t seen him, be¬ 
cause the doctors have been at him ever since he 
was found, and they expect to do some more to¬ 
night when we’ve had our interview with him, if 
he lives Icmg enough. One of my sergeants found 
him in the freight-yards about four-o’clock and sent 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 265 

him here in the ambulance; knew it was Teller, 
because he was stowed away in one of the empty 
cars that came from Plattville last night, and 
Slattery—that’s his running mate, the one we 
caught with the coat and hat—gave in that they 
beat their way on that freight. I guess Slattery let 
this one do most of the fighting; he ain’t scratched; 
but Mr. Harkless certainly made it hot for the 
Teller.” 

“My relative believes that Mr. Harkless is still 
alive,” said Meredith. 

Mr. Barrett permitted himself an indulgent smile. 
He had the air of having long ago discovered every¬ 
thing which anybody might wish to know, and of 
knowing a great deal which he held in reserve be¬ 
cause it was necessary to suppress many facts for a 
purpose far beyond his auditor’s comprehension, 
though a very simple matter to himself. 

“Well, hardly, I expect,” he replied, easily. “No; 
he’s hardly alive.” 

“Oh, don’t say that,” said Meredith. 

“I’m afraid Mr. Barrett has to say it,” broke in 
Warren Smith. “We’re up here to see this fellow 
before he dies, to try and get him to tell what 
disposal they made of the-” 



266 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


‘Ah!” Meredith shivered. ‘T believe I’d rathei 
he said the other than to hear you say that.” 

Mr. Horner felt the need of defending a fellow- 
townsman, and came to the rescue, flushing pain¬ 
fully. “It’s mighty bad, I Imow,” said the sheriff of 
Carlow, the shadows of his honest, rough face fall¬ 
ing in a solemn pattern; “I reckon we hate to say 
it as much as you hate to hear it; and Warren really 
didn’t get the word out. It’s stuck in our throats 
all day; and I don’t recollect as I heard a single man 
say it before I left our city this morning. Our 
folks thought a great deal of him, Mr. Meredith; 
I don’t believe there’s any thinks more. But it’s 
come to that now; you can’t hardly see no chance 
left. We be’n sweating this other man, Slattery, 
but we can’t break him down. Jest tells us to go 
to”—^the sheriff paused, evidently deterred by the 
thought that sv/ear-words were unbefitting a hos¬ 
pital—“to the other place, and shets his jaw up 
tight. The one up here is called the Teller, as Mr. 
Barrett says; his name’s Jerry the Teller. Well, 
we told Slattery that Jerry had died and left a con¬ 
fession; tried to make him think there wasn’t no 
hope fer him, and he might as well up and tell his 
share; might git off easier; warned him to look out 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 267 

for a mob if he didn’t, maybe, and so on, but it 
never bothered him at all. He’s nervy, all right. 
Told us to go—that is, he said it again—and swore 
the Teller was on his way to Chicago, swore he 
seen him git on the train. Wouldn’t say another 
word tell he got a lawyer. So, ’soon as it was any 
use, we come up here—they reckon he’ll come to 
before he dies. We’ll be glad to have you go in 
with us,” Horner said kindly. ‘T reckon it’s all 
the same to Mr. Barrett.” 

‘‘He will die, will he, Gay.^” Meredith asked, 
turning to the surgeon. 

“Oh, not necessarily,” the young man replied, 
yawning slightly behind his hand, and too long 
accustomed to straightforward questions to be 
shocked at an evident wish for a direct reply. “His 
chances are better, because they’ll hang him if he 
gets well. They took the ball and a good deal of 
shot out of his side, and there’s a lot more for after¬ 
while, if hp lasts. He’s been off the table an hour, 
and he’s still going.” 

“That’s in his favor, isn’t it?” said Meredith. 
“And extraordinary, too?” If young Dr. Gay per¬ 
ceived a slur in these interrogations he betrayed 
no exterior appreciation of it. 


268 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


‘‘Shot!’’ exclaimed Horner. “Shot! I knowed 
there’d be’n a pistol used, though where they got 
it beats me—we stripped ’em—and it wasn’t Mr. 
Harkless’s; he never carried one. But a shot-gun!” 

An attendant entered and spoke to the surgeon,, 
and Gay rose wearily, touched the drowsy young 
man on the shoulder, and led the way to the door. 
“You can come now,” he said to the others; “though 
I doubt its being any good to you. He’s ddirious.’^ 
They went down a long hall and up a narrow 
corridor, then stepped softly into a small, quiet ward. 

There was a pungent smell of chemicals in the 
room; the light was low, and the dimness was im¬ 
bued with a thick, confused murmur, incoherent 
ivhisperings that came from a cot in the corner. It 
was the only cot in use in the ward, and Meredith 
was conscious of a terror that made him dread to 
look at it, to go near it. Beside it a nurse sat silent, 
and upon it feebly tossed the racked body of him 
wLom Barrett had called Jerry the Teller. 

The head was a shapeless bundle, so swathed it 
was with bandages and cloths, and what part of 
the face was visible was discolored and pigmented 
with drugs. Stretched under the white sheet the 
man looked immensely tall—as Horner saw with 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 269 


vague misgiving—and he lay in an odd, inhuman 
fashion, as though he had been all broken to pieces. 
His attempts to move were constantly soothed by 
the nurse, and he as constantly renewed such 
attempts; and one hand, though torn and bandaged, 
was not to be restrained from a wandering, restless 
movement which Meredith felt to be pathetic. He 
had entered the room with a flare of hate for the 
thug whom he had come to see die, and who had 
struck down the old friend whose nearness he had 
never known until it was too late. But at first 
sight of the broken figure he felt all animosity fall 
away from him; only awe remained, and a growing, 
traitorous pity as he watched the long, white fingers 
of the Teller ‘‘pick at the coverlet.” The man was 
muttering rapid fragments of words, and syllables. 

“Somehow I feel a sense of wrong,” Meredith 
whispered to Gay. “I feel as if I had done the 
fellow to death myself, as if it were all out of gear. 
I know, now, how Henry felt over the great Guisard. 
My God, how tall he looks! That doesn't seem to 
me like a thug’s hand.” 

The surgeon nodded. “Of course, if there’s a 
mistake to be made, you can count on Barrett and 
his sergeants to make it. I doubt if this is their 


270 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


man. When they found him what clothes he wore 
were torn and stained; but they had been good 
once, especially the linen.” 

Barrett bent over the recumbent figure. ‘‘See 
here, Jerry,” he said, “I want to talk to you a little. 
Rouse up, will you.^ I want to talk to you as a 
friend.” 

The incoherent muttering continued. 

“See here, Jerry!” repeated Barrett, more sharply. 
“Jerry! rouse up, will you.? We don’t want any 
fooling; understand that, Jerry!” He dropped his 
hand on the man’s shoulder and shook him slightly. 
The Teller uttered a short, gasping cry. 

“Let me,” said Gay, and swiftly interposed* 
Bending over the cot, he said in a pleasant, soft 
voice: “It’s all right, old man; it’s all right. SlaL 
tery wants to know what you did with that man 
down at Plattville, when you got through with him. 
He can’t remember, and he thinks there was money 
left on him. Slattery’s head was hurt—he can’t 
remember. He’ll go shares with you, when he gets 
it. Slattery’s going to stand by you, if he can get 
the money.” 

The Teller only tried to move his free hand to 
the shoulder Barrett had shaken. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 271 


“Slattery wants to know,” repeated the surgeon, 
gently moving the hand back upon the sheet. 
“He’ll divvy up, when he gets it. He’ll stand by 
you, old man.” 

“Would you please not mind,” whispered the 
Teller f^tly, “would you please not mind if you 
took care not to brush against my shoulder again.?” 

The surgeon drew back with an exclamation; 
but the Teller’s whisper gathered strength, and 
they heard him murmuring oddly to himself. Mere- 
ditli moved forward. 

“What’s that?” he asked, with a startled gesture> 

“Seems to be trying to sing, or something,” said 
Barrett, bending over to listen. The Teller swung 
his arm heavily over the side of the cot, the fingers 
never ceasing their painful twitching, and Gay 
leaned down and gently moved the cloths so that 
the white, scarred lips were free. They moved 
steadily; they seemed to be framing the semblance 
of an old ballad that Meredith knew; the whisper 
grew more distinct, and it became a rich but broken 
voice, and they heard it singing, like the sound of 
some far, halting minstrelsy: 


‘Wave milows—murmur waters—golden sunbeams smile. 
Earthly music—cannot waken—lovely—Annie Lisle.’* 


272 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


‘'My God!” cried Tom Meredith. 

The bandaged hand waved jauntily over the 
Teller’s head. “Ah, men,” he said, almost clearly, 
and tried to lift himself on his arm, “I tell you it’s 
a grand eleven we have this year! There will be 
little left of anything that stands against them. Did 
you see Jim Romley ride over his man this after¬ 
noon?” 

As the voice grew clearer the sheriff stepped for¬ 
ward, but Tom Meredith, with a loud exclamation 
of grief, threw himself on his knees beside the cot 
and seized the wandering fingers in his own. “John!’' 
he cried. “John! Is it youf^ 

The voice went on rapidly, not heeding him: 
“Ah, you needn’t howl; I’d have been as much use 
at right as that Sophomore. Well, laugh away, you 
Indians! If it hadn’t been for this ankle—^but it 
seems to be my chest that’s hurt—and side—^not 
that it matters, you know; the Sophomore’s just as 
good, or better. It’s only my egotism. Yes, it 
must be the side—and chest—and head—^all over, 
I believe. Not that it matters—I’ll try again next 
year—next year I’ll make it a daily, Helen said, 
not that I should call you Helen—I mean Miss—Miss 
—Fisbee—no, Sherwood—but I’ve always thought 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 273 

Helen was the prettiest name in the world—^you’ll 
forgive me?—And please tell Parker there’s no 
more copy, and won’t be—I wouldn’t grind out 
another stick to save his immortal—yes, yes, a daily 
—^she said—ah, I never made a good trade—^no— 
they can’t come seven miles—but I’ll finish 
Skillett, first; I know ^ou/ I know nearly all of 
you! Now let’s sing ‘Annie Lisle.’ ” He lifted his 
hand as if to beat the time for a chorus. 

“Oh, John, John!” cried Tom Meredith, 
and sobbed outright. “My boy—my boy—old 

friend-” The cry of the classmate was like 

that of a mother, for it was his old idol and hero 
who lay helpless and broken before him. 

The brougham lamps and the apathetic sparks of 
the cab gleamed in front of the hospital till day¬ 
light. Two other pairs of lamps joined them in 
the earliest of the small hours, these subjoined to 
two deep-hooded phaetons, from each of which 
quickly descended a gentleman with a beard, an 
air of eminence, and a small, ominous black box. 
The air of eminence was justified by the haste with 
which Meredith had sent for them, and by their 
wide repute. They arrived almost simultaneously. 


274 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


and hastily shook hands as they made their way 
to the ward down the long hall and up the narrow 
coiTidor. They had a short conversation with Gay 
and a word with the nurse, then turned the others 
out of the room by a practiced innuendo of manner. 
They stayed a long time in the room without open¬ 
ing the door. Meredith paced the hall alone, some¬ 
times stopping to speak to Warren Smith; but the 
two officials of peace sat together in dumb consterna¬ 
tion and astonishment. The sleepy young man 
relaxed himself resignedly upon a bench in the hall 
and returned to the dormance from which he had 
been roused. The big hospital was very still. Now 
and then a nurse went through the hall, carrying 
something, and sometimes a neat young physician 
passed cheerfully along, looking as if he had many 
patients who were well enough to testify to his 
skill, but sick enough to pay for it. Outside, through 
the open front doors, the crickets chirped. 

Meredith went out on the steps, and breathed the 
cool night air. A slender taint of drugs hung every¬ 
where about the building, and the almost imper¬ 
ceptible permeation sickened him; it was deadly, 
he thought, and imbued with a hideous portent 
of suffering. That John Harkless, of all men, should 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 275 


lie stifled with ether, and bandaged and splintered, 
and smeared with horrible unguents, while they 
stabbed and slashed and tortured him, and made 
an outrage and a sin of that grand, big, dexterous 
body of his! Meredith shuddered. The lights in 
the little ward were turned up, and they seemed 
to shine from a chamber of horrors, while he waited, 
as a brother might have waited outside the In¬ 
quisition—if, indeed, a brother would have been 
allowed to wait outside the Inquisition. 

Alas, he had found John Harkless! He had 
“lost track” of him as men sometimes do lose 
track of their best beloved, but it had always been 
a comfort to know that Harkless was —somewhere, 
a comfort without which he could hardly have got 
along. Like others he had been waiting for John 
to turn up—on top, of course; for people would 
always believe in him so, that he would be shoved 
ahead, no matter how much he hung back himself— 
but Meredith had not expected him to turn up in 
Indiana. He had heard vaguely that Harkless was 
abroad, and he had a general expectation that 
people would hear of him over there some day, 
with papers like the “Times” beseeching him to 
go on missions. And he found him here, in h^s 


276 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


own home, a stranger, alone and dying, receiving 
what ministrations were reserved for Jerry the 
Teller. But it was Helen Sherwood who had found 
him. He wondered how much those two had seen 
of each other, down there in Plattville. If they 
had liked each other, and Harkless could have 
lived, he thought it might have simplified some 
things for Helen. “Poor Helen!” he exclaimed 
aloud. Her telegram had a ring, even in the barren 
four sentences. He wondered how much they had 
liked each other. Perhaps she would wish to come 
at once. When those fellows came out of the room 
he would send her a word by telegraph. 

When they came out—ah! he did not want them 
to come out; he was afraid. They were an eternity 
—why didn’t they come.^ No; he hoped they would 
not come, just now. In a little time, in a few min¬ 
utes, even, he would not dread a few vrords so 
much; but now he couldn’t quite bear to be told 
he had found his friend only to lose him, the man 
he had always most needed, wanted, loved. Every¬ 
body had always cared for Harkless, wherever he 
went. That he had always cared for everybody 
was part of the reason, maybe. Meredith remem¬ 
bered, now, hearing a man who had spent a day 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 277 


in Plattville on business speak of him: “They’ve 
got a young fellow down there who’ll be Governor 
in a few years. He’s a sort of dictator; and runs 
the party all over that part of the State to suit 
his own sweet will, just by sheer personality. And 
there isn’t a man in that district who wouldn’t 
cheerfully lie down in the mud to let him pass 
over dry. It’s that young Harkless, you know; 
owns the ‘Herald,’ the paper that downed McCune 
and smashed those imitation ‘White-Caps’ in Carlow 
County.” Meredith had been momentarily struck 
by the coincidence of the name, but his notion of 
Harkless was so inseparably connected with what 
was (to his mind) a handsome and more spacious 
—certainly more illuminated—field of action, that 
the idea that this might be his friend never entered 
his head. Helen had said something once—he 
could not remember what—that made him think 
she had half suspected it, and he had laughed. He 
thought of the whimsical fate that had taken her 
to Plattville, of the reason for her going, and the 
old thought came to him that the world is, after all, 
so very small. He looked up at the twinkling stars; 
they were reassuring and kind. Under their be- 
nignancy no loss could befall, no fate miscarry— 


278 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


for in his last thought he felt his vision opened, for 
the moment, to perceive a fine tracery of fate. 

“Ah, that would be too beautiful!” he said. 

And then he shivered; for his name was spoken 
from within. 

It was soon plain to him that he need not have 
feared a few words, for he did not in the least under¬ 
stand those with which the eminent surgeons fa¬ 
vored him; and they at once took their depart¬ 
ure. He did imderstand, however, what Horner 
told him. Mr. Barrett, Warren Smith, and the 
sleepy young man had reentered the ward; and 
Horner was following, but waited for Meredith. 
Somehow, the look of the sheriff’s Sunday coat, 
wrinkling forlornly from his broad, bent shoulders 
was both touching and solemn. He said simply*, 
“He’s conscious and not out of his head. They’re 
gone in to take his ante-mortem statement,” and 
they went into tlie room. 

Harkless’s eyes were bandaged. The lawyer was 
speaking to him, and as Horner went awkwardly 
toward the cot, Warren said something indicative of 
the sheriff’s presence, and the hand on the sheet 
made a formless motion which Horner understood, 
for he took the pale fingers in his own, very gently, 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 279 

and then set them back. Smith turned toward 
Meredith, but the latter made a gesture which 
forbade the attorney to speak of him, and went to a 
corner and sat down with his head in his hands. 

The sleepy young man opened a notebook and 
shook a stylographic pen so that the ink might flow 
freely. The lawyer, briefly and with unlegal agita¬ 
tion, administered an oath, to which Harkless 
responded feebly, and then there was silence. 

‘‘Now, Mr. Harkless, if you please,” said Bar¬ 
rett, insinuatingly; “if you feel like telling us as 
much as you can about it.^” 

He answered in a low, rather indistinct voice, very 
deliberately, pausing before almost every word. It 
was easy work for the sleepy stenographer. 

“I understand. I don’t want to go off my head 
again before I finish. Of course I know why you 
want this. If it were only for myself I should tell 
you nothing, because, if I am to leave, I should like 
it better if no one were punished. But that’s a bad 
community over there; they are everlastingly worry¬ 
ing our people; they have always been a bother to 
us, and it’s time it was stopped for good. I don’t 
believe very much in punishment, but you can’t do 
a great deal of reforming with the Cross-Road ers 


280 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


unless you catch them young—very young, before 
they’re weaned—they wean them on whiskey, I 
think. I realize you needn’t have sworn me for me 
to tell you this.” 

Horner and Smith had started at the mention of 
the Cross-Roads, but they subdued their ejacula¬ 
tions, while Mr. Barrett looked as if he had known 
it, of course. The room was still, save for the dim 
voice and the soft transcribings of the stylographic 
pen. 

‘T left Judge Briscoe’s, and went west on the pike 
to a big tree. It rained, and I stepped under the 
tree for shelter. There was a man on the other side 
of the fence. It was Bob Skillett. He was carry¬ 
ing his gown and hood—I suppose it was that—on 
his arm. Then I saw two others a little farther east, 
in the middle of the road; and I think they had fol¬ 
lowed me from the Briscoes’, or near there. They 
had their foolish regalia on, as all the rest had,— 
there was plenty of lightning to see. The two in 
the road were simply standing there in the rain, 
looking at me through the eye-holes in their hoods. 
I knew there were others—plenty—^but I thought 
they were coming from behind me—the west. 

‘T wanted to get home—the court-house yard 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA m 


was good enough for me—^so I started east, toward 
town. I passed the two gentlemen; and one fell 
down as I went by him, but the other fired a shot as 
a signal, and I got his hood off his face for it—I 
stopped long enough—and it was Force Johnson. I 
know him well. Then I ran, and they followed. A 
little ahead of me I saw six or eight of them spread 
across the road. I knew I’d have a time getting 
through, so I jumped the fence to cut across the 
fields, and I lit in a swarm of them—it had rained 
them just where I jumped. I set my back to the 
fence, but one of the fellows in the road leaned over 
and smashed my head in, rather—with the butt of 
a gun, I believe. I came out from the fence and they 
made a little circle around me. No one said any¬ 
thing. I saw they had ropes and saplings, and I 
didn’t want that, exactly, so I went kito them. I 
got a good many hoods off before it was over, and 
I can swear to quite a number besides those I told 
you.” 

He named the men, slowly and carefully. Then 
he went on: ‘T think they gave up the notion of 
whipping. We all got into a bunch, and they 
couldn’t clear to shoot without hitting some of 
their own; and there was a lot of gouging and kick- 


282 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


ing—one fellow nearly got my left eye, and I tried to 
tear him apart and he screamed so that I think he 
was hurt. Once or twice I thought I might get 
away, but somebody hammered me over the head 
and face again, and I got dizzy; and then they all 
jumped away from me suddenly, and Bob Skillett 
stepped up—and—shot me. He waited for a good 
flurry of lightning, and I was slow tumbling down. 
Some one else fired a shot-gun, I think—I can’t be 
sure—about the same time, from the side. I tried 
to get up, but I couldn’t, and then they got together, 
for a consultation. The man I had hurt—I didn’t 
recognize him—came and looked at me. He was 
nursing himself all over; and groaned; and I laughed^ 
I—at any rate, my arm was lying stretched out on 
the grass, and he stamped his heel into my hand, 
and after a little of that I quit feeling. 

“I’m not quite clear about what happened after¬ 
wards. They went away, not far, I think. There’s 
an old shed, a cattle-shelter, near there, and I think 
the storm drove them under it to wait for a slack. 
It seemed a long time. Sometimes I was conscious, 
sometimes I wasn’t. I thought I might be drowned, 
but I suppose the rain was good for me. Then I 
remember being in motion, being dragged and car- 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FRO]\I INDIANA 283 


ried a long way. They took me up a steep, short 
slope, and set me down near the top. I knew that 
was the railroad embankment, and I thought they 
meant to lay me across the track, but it didn’t occur 
to them, I suppose—they are not familiar with melo¬ 
drama—and a long time after that I felt and heard 
a great banging and rattling under me and all about 
me, and it came to me that they had disposed of me 
by hoisting me into an empty freight-car. The odd 
part of it was that the car wasn’t empty, for there 
were two men already in it, and I knew them by 
what they said to me. 

“They were the two shell-men who cheated 
Hartley Bowlder, and they weren’t vindictive; they 
even seemed to be trying to help me a little, though 
perhaps they were only stealing my clothes, and 
maybe they thought for them to do anything un¬ 
pleasant would be superfluous; I could see that they 
thought I was done for, and that they had been hid¬ 
ing in the car when I was put there. I asked them 
to try to call the train men for me, but they wouldn’t 
listen, or else I couldn’t make myself understood. 
That’s all. The rest is a blur. I haven’t known 
anything more until those surgeons were here. 
Please tell me how long ago it happened. I shall 


284 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

not die, I think; there are a good many things I want 
to know about.” He moved restlessly and the nurse 
soothed him. 

Meredith rose and left the room with a noiseless 
step. He went out to the stars again, and looked to 
them to check the storm of rage and sorrow that 
buffeted his bosom. He understood lynching, now 
the thing was home to him, and his feeling was no 
inspiration of a fear lest the law miscarry; it was the 
itch to get his own hand on the rope. Horner came 
out presently, and whispered a long, broad, pro¬ 
found curse upon the men of the Cross-Roads, and 
Meredith’s gratitude to him was keen. Barrett went 
away, soon after, leaving the cab for the gentlemen 
from. Plattville. Meredith had a strange, unreason¬ 
able desire to kick Barrett, possibly for his ser¬ 
geant’s sake. Warren Smith sat in the ward with 
the nurse and Gay, and the room was very quiet. It 
was a long vigil. 

They were only waiting. 

At five o’clock he was still alive—just that. Smith 
came out to say. Meredith sent his driver with a 
telegram to Helen which would give Plattville the 
news that Harkless was found and was not yet gone 
from them. Horner took the cab and left for tho 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 285 


station; there was a train, and there were things for 
him to do in Carlow. At noon Meredith sent a 
second telegram to Helen, as barren of detail as the 
first: he was alive—was a little improved. This tele¬ 
gram did not reach her, for she was on the way to 
Rouen, and half of the population of Carlow—at 
least, so it appeared to the unhappy conductor of the 
accommodation—was with her. 

They seemed to feel that they could camp in the 
hospital halls and corridors, and they were an incal¬ 
culable worry to the authorities. More came on 
every train, and nearly all brought flowers, and jelly, 
and chickens for preparing broth, and they insisted 
that the two latter delicacies be fed to the patient at 
once. Meredith was possessed by an unaccount¬ 
able responsibility for them all, and invited a great 
many to stay at his own house. They were still in 
ignorance of the truth about the Cross-Roads, and 
some of them spent the day (it was Sunday) in plan¬ 
ning an assault upon the Rouen jail for the purpose 
of lynching Slattery in case Harkless’s condition did 
not improve at once. Those who had heard his 
statement kept close mouths until the story ap¬ 
peared in full in the Rouen papers on Monday 
morning; but by that time every member of the 


280 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


Cross-Roads White-Caps was lodged in the Rouen 
jail with Slattery. Horner and a heavily armed 
posse rode over to the muddy corners on Sunday 
night, and the sheriff discovered that he might have 
taken the Skilletts and Johnsons single-handed and 
unarmed. Their nerve was gone; they were shaken 
and afraid; and, to employ a figure somewhat in¬ 
appropriate to their sullen, glad surrender, they fell 
upon his neck in their relief at finding the law touch¬ 
ing them. They had no wish to hear “John Brown’s 
Body” again. They wanted to get inside of a 
strong jail, and to throw themselves on the mercy 
of the court as soon as possible. And those whom 
Harkless had not recognized delayed not to give 
themselves up; they did not desire to remain in 
Six-Cross-Roads. Bob Skillett, Force Johnson, and 
one or two others needed the care of a physician 
badly, and one man was suffering from a severely 
wrenched back. Horner had a train stopped at a 
crossing, so that his prisoners need not be taken 
through Plattville, and he brought them all safely to 
Rouen. Had there chanced any one to ride through 
the deserted Cross-Roads the next morning, pass¬ 
ing the trampled fields and the charred ruins of the 
two shanties to the east, and listening to the lamen- 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 287 

tations of the women and children, he would have 
declared that at last the old score had been paid, and 
that Six-Cross-Roads was wiped out. 

The Carlow folks were deeply impressed with the 
two eminent surgeons, of whom some of them had 
heard, and on Tuesday, the bulletins marking con¬ 
siderable encouragement, most of them decided to 
temporarily risk the editor of the “Herald” to such 
capable hands, and they returned quietly to their 
homes; only a few were delayed in reaching Carlow 
by travelling to the first station in the opposite di¬ 
rection before they succeeded in planting themselves 
cn the proper train. 

Meanwhile, the object of their solicitude tossed 
and burned on his bed of pain. He was delirious 
most of the time, and, in the intervals of half-con¬ 
sciousness, found that his desire to live, very strong 
at first, had disappeared; he did nor care much about 
anything except rest—he wanted peace. In his 
wanderings he was almost always back in his college 
days, beholding them in an unhappy, distorted 
fashion. He would lie asprawl on the sward with 
the others, listening to the Seniors singing on the 
steps, and, all at once, the old, kindly faces would 
expand enormously and press over him with hid- 


288 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


ecus mouthings, and an ugly Senior in cap and gown 
would stamp him and grind a spiked heel into 
his hand; then they would toss him high into air that 
was all flames, and he would fall and fall through the 
raging heat, seeing the cool earth far beneath him, 
but never able to get down to it again. And then 
he was driven miles and miles by dusky figures, 
through a rain of boiling water; and at other times 
the whole universe was a vast, hot brass bell, and it 
gave off a huge, continuous roar and hum, while he 
was a mere point of consciousness floating in the 
exact centre of the heat and sound waves, and he 
listened, listened for years, to the awful, brazen hum 
from which there could be no escape; at the same 
time it seemed to him that he was only a Freshman 
on the slippery roof of the tower, trying to steal the 
clapper of the chapel bell. 

Finally he came to what he would have considered 
a lucid interval, had it not appeared that Helen Sher¬ 
wood was whispering to Tom Meredith at the foot 
of his bed. This he knew to be a fictitious presenta¬ 
tion of his fever, for was she not by this time away 
and away for foreign lands? And, also, Tom Mere¬ 
dith was a slim young thing, and not the middle- 
aged youth with an undeniable stomach and a bald- 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 289 


ish head, who, by the grotesque necromancy of his 
hallucinations, assumed a preposterous likeness to 
his old friend. He waved his hand to the figures 
and they vanished like figments of a dream; but all 
the same the vision had been realistic enough for 
the lady to look exquisitely pretty. No one could 
help wishing to stay in a world which contained as 
charming a picture as that. 

And then, too quickly, the moment of clearness 
passed; and he was troubled about the ‘"Herald,” 
beseeching those near him to put copies of the paper 
in his hands, threatening angrily to believe they 
were deceiving him, that his paper had suspended, if 
the three issues of the week were not instantly pro¬ 
duced. What did they mean by keeping the truth 
from him.^ He knew the “Herald” had not come 
out. W^ho w^as there to get it out in his absence.^ 
He raised himself on his elbow and struggled to be 
up; and they had hard w^ork to quiet him. 

But the next night Meredith waited near his bed¬ 
side, haggard and dishevelled. Harkless had been 
lying in a long stupor; suddenly he spoke, quite 
loudly, and the young surgeon. Gay, who leaned 
over him, remembered the words and the tone all 
his life. 


290 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“Away and away—across the waters,” said John 
Harkless. “She was here—once—in June.” 

“What is it, John?” whispered Meredith, huskily. 
“You’re easier, aren’t you?” 

And John smiled a little, as if, for an instant, his 
swathed eyes penetrated the bandages, and saw and 
knew his old friend again. 

That same night a friend of Rodney McCune’s 
sent a telegram from Rouen: “He is dying. His 
paper is dead. Your name goes before convention 
in September.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


JAMES FISBEE 

O N Monday morning three men sat in 
council in the ‘‘Herald” office; that is, 
if staring out of dingy windows in a de¬ 
mented silence may be called sitting in council; 
that was what Mr. Fisbee and Parker and Ross 
Schofield were doing. By almost desperate exer¬ 
tions, these three and Bud Tipworthy had managed 
to place before the public the issues of the paper 
for the previous week, unaided by their chief, or, 
rather, aided by long accounts of his condition 
and the manner of his mishap; and, in truth, three 
copies were at that moment in the possession of 
Dr. Gay, accompanied by a note from Parker 
warning the surgeon to exhibit them to his patient 
only as a last resort, as the foreman feared the 
perusal of them might cause a relapse. 

By indiscriminate turns, acting as editors, re¬ 
porters, and typesetters—and particularly space- 
writers—the three men had worried out three issues. 


292 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


and part of the fourth (to appear the next morning) 
was set up; but they had come to the end of their 
string, and there were various horrid gaps yet to fill 
in spite of a too generous spreading of advertise¬ 
ments. Bud Tipworthy had been sent out to be¬ 
siege Miss Tibbs, all of whose recent buds of rhyme 
had been hot-housed into inky blossom during the 
week, and after a long absence the youth returned 
with a somewhat abrupt quatrain, entitled “The 
Parisians of Old,” which she had produced while 
he waited—only four lines, according to the measure 
they meted, which was not regardful of art—less 
than a drop in the bucket, or, to preserve the figure, 
a single posy where they needed a bouquet. Bud 
went down the rickety outside stairs, and sat on the 
lowest step, whistling “Wait till the Clouds Roll by, 
Jenny”; Ross Schofield descended to set up the 
quatrain, and Fisbee and Parker were left to silence 
and troubled meditation. 

They were seated on opposite sides of Harkless’s 
desk. Sheets of blank scratch-paper lay before 
them, and they relaxed not their knit brows. Now 
and then, one of them, after gazing vacantly about 
the room for ten or fifteen minutes, would attack the 
sheet before him with fiercest energy; then the 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 293 


energy would taper off, and the paragraph halt, 
the writer peruse it dubiously, then angrily tear 
off the sheet and hurl it to the floor. All around 
them lay these snowballs of defeated journalism. 

Mr. Parker was a long, loose, gaunt gentleman, 
with a peremptory forehead and a capable jaw, but 
on the present occasion his capability was baffled 
and swamped in the attempt to steer the craft of his 
talent up an unaccustomed channel without a pilot. 
'T don’t see as it’s any use, Fisbee,” he said, mo¬ 
rosely, after a series of efforts that littered the floor 
in every direction. ‘T’m a born compositor, and I 
can’t shift my trade. I stood the pace fairly for a 
week, but I’ll have to give up; I’m run plumb dry. 
I only hope they won’t show him our Saturday with 
your three columns of ‘A Word of the Lotus Mo¬ 
tive,’ reprinted from February. I begin to sym¬ 
pathize with the boss, because I know what he felt 
when I ballyragged him for copy. Yes, sir, I know 
how it is to be an editor in a dead town now.” 

‘‘We must remember, too,” said his companion, 
thoughtfully, “there is the Thursday issue of this 
week to be prepared, almost at once.” 

Don’t! Please don’t mention that, Fisbee!” 
Parker tilted far back in his chair with his feet 


294 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

anchored under the desk, preserving a precarious 
balance. ‘T ain’t as grateful for my promotion to 
joint Editor-in-Chief as I might be. I’m a middling 
poor man for the hour, I guess,” he remarked, pain¬ 
fully following the peregrinations of a fly on his 
companion’s sleeve. 

Mr. Fisbee twisted up another sheet, and em¬ 
ployed his eyes in following the course of a crack in 
the plaster, a slender black aperture which staggered 
across the dusty ceiling and down the dustier wall 
to disappear behind a still dustier map of Carlow 
County. “That’s the trouble!” exclaimed Parker, 
observing the other’s preoccupation. “Soon as 
you get to writing a line or two that seems kind of 
promising, you begin to take a morbid interest in 
that blamed crack. It’s busted up enough copy for 
me, the last eight days, to have filled her up twenty 
times over. I don’t know as I ever care to see that 
crack again. I turned my back on it, but there 
wasn’t any use in that, because if a fly lights on you 
I watch him like a brother, and if there ain’t any fly 
I’ve caught a mania for tapping my teeth with a 
pencil, that is just as good.” 

To these two gentlemen, thus disengaged, re¬ 
entered (after a much longer absence than Miss 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 295 


Selina’s quatrain justified) Mr. Ross Schofield, a 
healthy glow of exertion lending pleasant color to 
his earnest visage, and an almost visible laurel of 
success crowning his brows. In addition to this 
imaginary ornament, he was horned with pencils 
over both ears, and held some scribbled sheets in his 
hand. 

‘T done a good deal down there,” he announced 
cheerfully, drawing up a chair to the desk. ‘T 
thought up a heap of things I’ve heard lately, and 
they’ll fill up mighty well. That there poem of Miss 
Seliny’s was a kind of an inspiration to me, and I 
tried one myself, and it didn’t come hard at all. 
When I got started once, it jest seemed to flow from 
me. I didn’t set none of it up,” he added modestly, 
but with evident consciousness of having unearthed 
genius in himself and an elate foreknowledge of the 
treat in store for his companions. ‘T thought I’d 
ort to see how you liked it first.” He offered the 
papers to Mr. Parker, but the foreman shook his 
head. 

“You read it, Ross,” I said. “I don’t believe I 
feel hearty enough to-day. Read the items first—' 
we can bear the waiting.” 

“Wliat waiting?” inquired Mr. Schofield. 


^96 THE GENTLEMAN FROM mOIANA 

‘Tor the poem/’ replied Parker, grimly. 

With a vague but not fleeting smile, Ross settled 
the sheets in order, and exhibited tokens of that 
pleasant nevousness incident to appearing before 
a critical audience, armed with literature whose mer¬ 
its should delight them out of the critical attitude. 
‘T run across a great scheme down there,” he volun¬ 
teered amiably, by way of preface; ‘T described 
everything in full, in as many words as I could think 
up; it’s mighty filling, and it’ll please the public, too; 
it gives ’em a lot more information than they us’ally 
git. I reckon there’s two sticks of jest them extry 
words alone.” 

“Go on,” said the foreman, rather ominously. 

Ross began to read, a matter necessitating a puck¬ 
ered brow and at times an amount of hesitancy and 
ruminating, as his results had already cooled a little, 
and he found his hand dfficult to decipher. “Here’s 
the first,” he said: 

“ ‘The large and handsome, fawn-colored, two 
years and one-half year old Jersey of Frederick 
Ribshaw Jones, Esquire-’ ” 

The foreman interrupted him: “Every reader of 
the ‘Herald’ will be glad to know that Jersey’s age 
and color! But go on.” 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA m 


“ ‘—Frederick Ribshaw Jones, Esquire,’ ” pursued 
his assistant, with some discomfiture, “ ‘—Esquire, 
our popular and well-dressed fellow-citizen-’ ” 

“You’re right; Rib Jones is a heavy swell,” said 
Parker in a breaking voice. 

‘‘ ‘—Citizen, can be daily seen wandering from 
the far end of his pasture-lot to the other far end of 
it.’ ” 

“ ‘His!’ ” exclaimed Parker. “ 'His pasture- 
lot?’ The Jersey’s?” 

“No,” returned the other, meekly, “Rib Jones’s.” 

“Oh,” said Parker. “Is that the end of that 
item? It is! You want to get out of Plattville, my 
friend; it’s too small for you; you go to Rouen and 
you’ll be city editor of the ‘Journal’ inside of a 
week. Let’s have another.” 

Mr. Schofield looked up blankly; however, he felt 
that there was enough live, legitimate news in his 
other items to redeem the somewhat tame quality 
of the first, and so, after having crossed out several 
of the extra words which had met so poor a recep¬ 
tion, he proceeded: 

“ ‘Whit Upton’s pigs broke out last Wednesday 
and rooted up a fine patch of garden truck. Hard 
luck, Whit.’ 


^98 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“ ‘Jerusalem Hawkins took a drive yesterday 
afternoon. He had the bay to his side-bar. Jee’s 
buggy has been recently washed. Congratulations, 
Jee.’ ’’ 

“There’s thrilling information!” shouted the fore¬ 
man. “That’ll touch the gentle reader to the 
marrow. The boss had to use some pretty rotten 
copy himself, but he never got as low as that. But 
we’ll use it; oh, we’ll use it! If we don’t get her out 
he’ll have a set-back, but if they show her to him 
it’ll kill him. If it doesn’t, and he gets well, he’ll 
kill us. But we’ll use it, Ross. Don’t read any 
more to us, though; I feel weaker than I did, and 
I wasn’t strong before. Go down and set it all up.” 

Mr. Schofield rejoined with an injured air, and yet 
hopefully: “I’d hke to see what you think of the 
poetry—it seemed all right to me, but I reckon you 
ain’t ever the best judge of your own work. Shall 
I read it?” The foreman only glanced at him in 
sHence, and the young man took this for assent* “I 
haven’t made up any name for it yet.” 

“ ‘O, the orphan boy stood on the hill. 

The wind blew cold and very chill—’ ” 

Glancing at his auditors, he was a trifle abashed to 
observe a glaze upon the eyes of Mr. Parker, while 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 299 

a purple tide rose above his neck-band and unnatu¬ 
rally distended his throat and temples. With a 
placative little laugh, Mr. Schofield remarked: ‘T 
git the swing to her all right, I reckon, but some¬ 
how it doesn’t sound so kind of good as when I was 
writing it.” There was no response, and he went on 
hurriedly: 

'* ‘But there he saw the little rill—* ” 

The poet paused to say, with another amiable laugh: 
“It’s sort of hard to git out of them ill, hiU, chill 
rhymes once you strike ’em. It runs on like this: 

“ ‘—Little rill 

That curved and spattered around the hilt’ 

I guess that’s all right, to use ‘hill’ twice; don’t 
you reckon so? 

“ ‘And the orphan he stood there until 
The wind and all gave him a chill; 

And he sickened—’ ” 

That day Ross read no more, for the tall printer, 
seemingly incapable of coherent speech, kicked the 
desk impotently, threw his arms above his head, 
and, his companions confidently looking to see him 
foam at the mouth, lost his balance and toppled 
over backward, his extensive legs waving wildly in 
the air as he struck the floor. Mr. Schofield fled. 


300 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


Parker made no effort to rise, but lay glaring at 
the ceiling, breathing hard. He remained in that 
position for a long time, until finally the glaze wore 
away from his eyes and a more rational expression 
settled over his features. Mr. Fisbee addressed 
him timidly: “You don’t think we could reduce the 
size of the sheet?” 

“It would kill him,” answered his prostrate com¬ 
panion. “We’ve got to fill her solid some way, 
though 1 give up; I don’t know how. How that 
man has worked! It was genius. He just floated 
around the county and soaked in items, and he 
wrote editorials that people read. One thing’s 
certain: we can’t do it. We’re ruining his paper 
for him, and when he gets able to read, it’ll hurt 
him bad. Mighty few knew how much pride he 
had in it. Has it struck you that now would be a 
precious good time for it to occur to Rod McCime 
to come out of his hole? Suppose we go by the 
board, what’s to stop him? What’s to stop him, 
anyway? Who knows where the boss put those 
copies and affidavits, and if we did know, would 
we know the best way to use ’em? If we did, what’s 
to keep the ‘Herald’ ahve until McCune lifts his 
head? And if we don’t stop him, the ‘Carlow 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 301 


County Herald’ is finished. Something’s got to be 
done!” 

No one realized this more poignantly than Mr. 
Fisbee, but no one was less capable of doing some¬ 
thing of his own initiation. And although the 
Tuesday issue was forthcoming, embarrassingly pale 
in spots—most spots—Mr. Martin remarked rather 
publicly that the items were not what you might 
call stirring, and that the unpatented pages put him 
in mind of Jones’s field in winter with a dozen 
chunks of coal dropped in the snow. And his 
observations on the later issues of the week (issues 
which were put forth with a suggestion of spasm, 
and possibly to the permanent injury of Mr. Parker’s 
health, he looked so thin) were too cruelly unkind 
to be repeated here. Indeed, Mr. Fisbee, Parker, 
the luckless Mr. Schofield, and the young Tip¬ 
worthy may be not untruthfully likened to a band 
of devoted mariners lost in the cold and glaring 
regions of a journalistic Greenland: limitless plains 
of empty white paper extending about them as far 
as the eye could reach, while life depended upon 
their making these terrible voids productive; and 
they shrank appalled from the task, knowing no 
means to fertilize the barrens; having no talent fa 


302 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


bring the still snows into harvests, and already 
feeling—in the chill of Mr. Martin’s remarks—a 
touch of the frost that might wither them. 

It was Fisbee who caught the first glimpse of a 
relief expedition clipping the rough seas on its lively 
way to rescue them, and, although his first glimpse 
of the jaunty pennant of the relieving vessels was 
over the shoulder of an iceberg, nothing was surer 
than that the craft was flying to them with all good 
and joyous speed. The iceberg just mentioned 
assumed—^by no melting process, one may be sure 
'—the form of a long letter, first postmarked at 
Rouen, and its latter substance was as follows: 

“Henry and I have always believed you as selfish, James Fisbee, 
as you are self-ingrossed and incapable. She has told us of your 
‘renunciation’; of your ‘forbidding’ her to remain with you; how 
you commanded,’ after you had ‘begged’ her, to return to us, and 
how her conscience told her she should stay and share your life in 
spite of our long care of her, but that she yielded to your ‘wishes’ 
and our entreaty. What have you ever done for her and what have 
you to offer her? She is our daughter, and needless to say we shall 
still take care of her, for no one believes you capable of it, even in 
that miserable place, and, of course, in time she will return to her 
better wisdom, her home, and her duty. I need scarcely say we 
have given up the happy months we had planned to spend in Dres¬ 
den. Henry and I can only stay at home to pray that her pre¬ 
posterous mania will wear itself out in short order, as she will find 
herself unfitted for the ridiculous task which she insists upon at¬ 
tempting against the earnest wishes of us who have been more than 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 303 


father and mother to her. Of course, she has talked volumes of 
her affection for us, and of her gratitude, which we do not want— 
we only want her to stay with us. Please, please try to make her 
come back to us—we cannot bear it long. If you are a man you will 
send her to us soon. Her excuse for not returning on the day we 
wired our intention to go abroad at once (and I may as well tell you 
now that our intention to go was formed in order to bring affairs 
to a crisis and to draw her away from your influence—we always 
dreaded her visit to you and held it off for years)—her excuse was 
that your best friend, and, as I understand it, your patron, had 
been injured in some brawl in that Christian country of yours—a 
charming place to take a girl like her—and she would not leave you 
in your ‘distress’ until more was known of the man’s injuries. And 
now she insists—and you will know it from her by the next mail—on 
returning to Plattville, forsooth, because she has been reading your 
newspaper, and she says slv knows you are in difficulties over it, and 
it is her moral obligation—as by some wdld reasoning of her own 
she considers herself responsible for your ruffling patron’s having been 
alone when he was shot—to go down and help. I suppose he made 
love to her, as all the young men she meets always do, sooner or later, 
but I have *o fear of any rustic entanglements for her; she has never 
been really interested, save in one affair. We are quite powerless—• 
we have done everything; but we cannot alter her determination te 
edit your paper for you. Naturally, she knows nothing whatever 
about such work, but she says, with the air of triumphantly squelch¬ 
ing all such argument, that she has talked a great deal to Mr. 
Macauley of the ‘Journal.’ Mr. Macauley is the affair I have 
alluded to; he is what she has meant when she has said, at different 
times, that she was interested in journalism. But she is very 
business-like now. She has bought a typewriter and purchased a 
great number of soft pencils and erasers at an art shop; I am only 
surprised that she does not intend to edit your miserable paper in 
water-colors. She is coming at once. For mercy’s sake don’t 


304 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


telegraph her not to; your forbiddings work the wrong way. Our 
only hope is that she will find the conditions so utterly discouraging 
at the very start that she will give it up and come home. If you 
are a man you will help to make them so. She has promised to 
stay with that country girl with whom she contracted such an in¬ 
comprehensible friendship at Miss Jennings’s. 

“Oh, James, pray for grace to be a man once in your life and send 
her back to us! Be a man—try to be a man! Remember the angel 
you killed! Remember all we have done for you and what a return 
you have made, and be a man for the first time. Try and be a manl 
“Your unhappy sister-in-law', 

“Martha Sherwood.” 


Mr. Fisbee read the letter with a great, rising 
delight which no sense of duh^ could down; indeed, 
he perceived that his sense of duty had ceased to 
conflict with the one strong hope of his life, just as 
he perceived that to be a man, according to Martha 
Sherwood, was, in part, to assist Martha Sherwood 
to have her way in things; and, for the rest, to be 
the sort of man she persuaded herself she would be 
were she not a woman. This he had never been 
able to be. 

By some whimsy of fate, or by a failure of Karma 
(or, perhaps, by some triumph of Kismetic retribu¬ 
tion), James Fisbee was bom in one of the most 
business-like and artless cities of a practical and 
modem country, of money-getting, money-saving 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 305 


parents, and he was bom a dreamer of the past. He 
grew up a student of basilican lore, of choir-screens, 
of Persian frescoes, and an ardent lounger in the 
somewhat musty precincts of Chaldea and Byzan¬ 
tium and Babylon. Early Christian Symbolism, a 
dispute over the site of a Greek temple, the deriva¬ 
tion of the lotus column, the restoration of a Gothic 
buttress—these were the absorbing questions of his 
youth, with now and then a lighter moment spent 
m analytical consideration of the extra-mural deco¬ 
rations of St. Mark’s. The world buzzed along after 
its own fashion, not disturbing him, and his absorp¬ 
tions permitted only a faint consciousness of the 
despair of his relatives regarding lus mind. Arrived 
at middle-age, and a little more, he found himself 
alone in the world (though, for that matter, he had 
always been alone and never of the world), and there 
was plenty of money for him with various bankers 
who appeared to know about looking after it. 
Returning to the town of his nativity after sundry 
expeditions in Syria—upon which he had been 
accompanied by dusky gentlemen with pickaxes 
and curly, long-barrelled muskets—he met, and 
was married by, a lady wLo was ambitious, and 
who saw in him (probably as a fulfilment of another 


S06 THE GENTLEMAN FROM mDIANA 


Kismetic punishment) a power of learning and a 
destined success. Not long after the birth of their 
only child, a daughter, he was “called to fill the chair’* 
of archaeology in a newly founded university; one of 
the kind which a State and a millionaire combine to 
purchase ready-made. This one was handed down 
off the shelf in a more or less chaotic condition, and 
for a period of years betrayed considerable doubt as 
to its own intentions, undecided whether they were 
classical or technical; and in the settlement of that 
doubt lay the secret of the past of the one man in 
Plattville so unhappy as to possess a past. From 
that settlement and his own preceding action 
resulted his downfall, his disgrace with his wife’s 
relatives, the loss of his wife, the rage, surprise, and 
anguish of her sister, Martha, and Martha’s husband, 
Henry Sherwood, and the separation from his little 
daughter, which was by far to him the hardest to 
bear. For Fisbee, in his own way, and without con¬ 
sulting anybody—it never occurred to him, and he 
was supposed often to forget that he had a wife and 
child—^had informally turned over to the university 
all the money which the banks had kindly taken care 
of, and had given it to equip an expedition which 
never expedited. A new president of the institution 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 307 


was installed; he talked to the trustees; they met, 
and elected to become modern and practical and 
technical; they abolished the course in fine arts, 
which abolished Fisbee’s connection with them, and 
they then employed his money to erect a building 
for the mechanical engineering department. Fisbee 
was left with nothing. His wife and her kinsfolk 
exhibited no brilliancy in holding a totally irrespon¬ 
sible man down to responsibilities, and they made 
a tragedy of a not surprising fiasco. Mrs. Fisbee 
had lived in her ambitions, and she died of heart¬ 
break over the discovery of what manner of man she 
had married. But, before she died, she wisely pro¬ 
vided for her daughter. 

Fisbee told Parker the story after his own queer 
fashion. 

“You see, Mr. Parker,” he said, as they sat 
together in the dust and litter of the “Herald” 
office, on Sunday afternoon, “you see, I admit that 
my sister-in-law has always withheld her approba¬ 
tion from me, and possibly her disapproval is well 
founded—I shall say probably. My wife had also 
a considerable sum, and this she turned over to me 
at the time of our marriage, though I had no wish 
regarding it one way or the other. 'W^en I gave 


308 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


my money to the university with which I had the 
honor to be connected, I added to it the fund I had 
received from her, as I was the recipient of a com¬ 
fortable salary as a lecturer in the institution and 
had no fear of not living well, and I was greatly 
interested in providing that the expedition should 
be perfectly equipped. Expeditions of the magni¬ 
tude of that which I had planned are expensive, I 
should, perhaps, inform you, and this one was to 
carry on investigations regarding several important 
points, very elaborately; and I am still convinced it 
would have settled conclusively many vital questions 
concerning the derivation of the Babylonian column, 
as: whether the lotus column may be without preju¬ 
dice said to—but at the present moment I will not 
enter into that. I fear I had no great experience in 
money matters, for the transaction had been almost 
entirely verbal, and there was nothing to bind the 
trustees to carry out my plans for the expedition. 
They were very sympathetic, but what could they 
do? they begged leave to inquire. Such an institu* 
tion cannot give back money once donated, and it 
was clearly out of character for a school of tech¬ 
nology and engineering to send savants to investi¬ 
gate the lotus column.” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 309 


‘T see,” Mr. Parker observed, genially. He lis¬ 
tened with the most ingratiating attention, knowing 
that he had a rich sensation to set before Plattville 
as a dish before a king, for Fisbee’s was no confi¬ 
dential communication. The old man might have 
told a part of his history long ago, but it had never 
occurred to him to talk about his affairs—things had 
a habit of not occurring to Fisbee—and the efforts 
of the gossips to draw him out always passed over 
his serene and absent head. 

“It was a blow to my wife,” the old man con¬ 
tinued, sadly, “and I cannot deny that her reproaches 
were as vehement as her disappointment was 
sincere.” He hurried over this portion of his nar¬ 
rative with a vaguely troubled look, but the intelh- 
gent Parker read poor Mrs. Fisbee’s state of mind 
between the sentences. “She never seemed to 
regard me in the same light again,” the archaeologist 
went on. “She did not conceal from me that she 
was surprised and that she could not look upon me 
as a practical man; indeed, I may say, she appeared 
to regard me with marked antipathy. She sent for 
her sister, and begged her to take our daughter and 
keep her from me, as she did not consider me prac¬ 
tical enough—I will substitute for her more embit- 


310 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


tered expressions—to provide for a child and instruct 
it in the world’s ways. My sister-in-law, who was 
childless, consented to adopt the little one, on the 
conditions that I renounced all claim, and that the 
child legally assumed her name and should be in all 
respects as her own daughter, and that I consented 
to see her but once a year, in Rouen, at my brother- 
in-law’s home. 

‘T should have refused, but I—my wife—that is 
—she was—very pressing—in her last hours, and 
they all seemed to feel that I ought to make amends 
—all except the little girl herself, I should say, for 
she possessed, even as an infant, an exceptional 
affection for her father. I had nothing; my salary 
was gone, and I w^as discomfited by the combined 
actions of the trustees and my relatives, so—I—I 
gave her up to them, and my wife passed away in a 
more cheerful frame of mind, I think. That is about 
all. One of the instructors obtained the position 
here for me, which I—I finally—lost, and I went to 
see the little girl every New Year’s day. This year 
she declared her intention of visiting me, but she 
was persuaded by friends who were conversant with 
the circumstances to stay with them, where I could 
be with her almost as much as at my apartment at 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 311 


Mr. Tibbs’s. She had long since declared her inten¬ 
tion of some day returning to live with me, and 
when she came she was strenuous in insisting that 
the day had come.” The old man’s voice broke 
suddenly as he observed: “She has—a very—beau¬ 
tiful—character, Mr. Parker.” 

The foreman nodded with warm confirmation. 
‘T believe you, sir. Yes, sir; I saw her, and I guess 
she looks it. You take that kind of a lady usually, 
and catch her in a crowd like the one show-day, and 
she can’t help doing the Grand Duchess, giving the 
tenants a treat—but not her; she didn’t seem to 
separate herself from ’em, some way.” 

“She is a fine lady,” said the other simply. “I 
did not accept her renunciation,' though I acknowl¬ 
edge I forbade it with a very poignant envy. I 
could not be the cause of her giving up for my sake 
her state of ease and luxury—for my relatives are 
more than well-to-do, and they made it plain she 
must choose between them and me, with the design, 
I think, of making it more difficult to choose me. 
And, also, it seemed to me, as it did to her, that she 
owed them nearly everything, but she declared I had 
lived alone so long that she owed me everything, 
also. She is a—beautiful—character, Mr. Parker.’* 


312 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


''Well/’ said Parker, after a pause, "the town will 
be upside down over this; and folks will be mighty 
glad to have it explained about your being out there 
so much, and at the deepo, and all this and that. 
Everybody in the place has been wondering what in 
—that is—” he finished in some confusion—"that is 
—what I started to say was that it won’t be so bad 
as it might be, having a lady in the oflice here. I 
don’t cuss to speak of, and Ross can lay off on his 
till the boss comes back. Besides, it’s our only 
chance. If she can’t make the 'Herald’ hum, we go 
to the wall.” 

The old man did not seem to hear him. "I for¬ 
bade the renunciation she wished to make for my 
sake,” he said, gently, "but I accept it now for the 
sake of our stricken friend—for Mr. Harkless.” 

"And for the Carlow 'Herald,’ ” completed the 
foreman. 

The morning following that upon which this con¬ 
versation took place, the two gentlemen stood 
together on the station platform, awaiting the 
arrival of the express from Rouen. It was a wet 
gray day; the wide country lay dripping under form¬ 
less wraps of thin mist, and a warm, drizzling rain 
blackened the weather-beaten shingles of the station: 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 313 

made clear-reflecting puddles of the unevenly worn 
planks of the platform, and dampened the packing- 
cases that never went anywhere too thoroughly for 
occupation by the station-lounger, and ran in a little 
crystal stream off Fisbee’s brown cotton umbrella 
and down Mr. Parker’s back. The ’bus driver, Mr. 
Bennett, the proprietor of two attendant ‘‘cut- 
unders,” and three or four other worthies whom 
business, or the lack of it, called to that locality, 
availed themselves of the shelter of the waiting- 
room, but the gentlemen of the “Herald” were too 
agitated to be confined, save by the limits of the 
horizon. They had reached the station half an hour 
before train time, and consumed the interval in 
pacing the platform under the cotton umbrella, 
addressing each other only in monosyllables. Those 
in the waiting-room gossiped eagerly, and for the 
thousandth time, about the late events, and the 
tremendous news concerning Fisbee. Judd Bennett 
looked out through the rainy doorway at the latter 
with reverence and a fine pride of townsmanship, 
declaring it to be his belief that Fisbee and Parker 
were waiting for her at the present moment. It was 
a lady, and a bird of a lady, too, else why should 
Cale Parker be wearing a coat, and be otherwise 


314 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 

dooded and fixed up beyond any wedding? Judd and 
his friends were somewhat excited over Parker. 

Fisbee was clad in his best shabby black, which 
lent an air of state to the occasion, but Mr. Parker— 
Caleb Parker, whose heart, during his five years of 
residence in Plattville, had been steel-proof against 
all the feminine blandishments of the town, whose 
long, lank face had shown beneath as long, and 
1 anker, locks of proverbially uncombed hair, he who 
had for weeks conspicuously affected a single^ 
string-patched suspender, who never, even upon the 
Sabbath day, wore a collar or blacked his shoes— 
what aesthetic leaven had entered his soul that he 
donned not a coat alone but also a waistcoat with 
checks.^—and, more than that, a gleaming celluloid 
collar!^—and, more than that, a brilliant blue tie.^ 
What had this iron youth to do with a rising excite¬ 
ment at train time and brilliant blue ties? 

f 

Also, it might have been inquired if this parade 
of fashion had no connection with the simultaneous 
action of Mr. Ross Schofield; for Ross was at this 
hour engaged in decorating the battered chairs in 
the “Herald” editorial room with blue satin ribbon, 
the purchase of which at the Dry Goods Emporium 
had been directed by a sudden inspiration of his 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 315 


superior of the composing force. It was Ross’s 
intention to garnish each chair with an elaborately 
tied bow, but, as he was no sailor and understood 
only the intricacies of a hard-knot, he confined him¬ 
self to that species of ornamentation, leaving, how¬ 
ever, very long ends of ribbon hanging down after 
the manner of the pendants of rosettes. 

It scarcely needs the statement that his labors 
were in honor of the new editor-in-chief of the Car- 
low “Herald.” The advent and the purposes of this 
personage were, as yet, known certainly to only 
those of the “Herald” and to the Briscoes. It had 
been arranged, however, that Minnie and her father 
were not to come to the station, for the journalistic 
crisis was immoderately pressing; the “Herald” 
was to appear on the morrow, and the new editor 
wished to plunge directly, and without the briefest 
distraction, into the paper’s difficulties, now accumu¬ 
lated into a veritable sea of troubles. The editor 
was to be delivered to the Briscoes at eventide and 
returned by them again at dewy morn; and this was 
to be the daily programme. It had been further— 
and most earnestly—stipulated that when the 
wounded proprietor of the ailing journal should be 
informed of the addition to his forces, he was not to 


316 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

know, or to have the slenderest hint of, the sex oi 
identity of the person in charge during his absence. 
It was inevitable that Plattville (already gaping to 
the uttermost) would buzz voluminously over it 
before night, but Judge Briscoe volunteered to 
prevent the buzz from reaching Rouen. He under¬ 
took to interview whatever citizens should visit 
Harkless, or write to him—when his illness permitted 
visits and letters—and forewarn them of the incum¬ 
bent’s desires. To-day, the judge stayed at home 
wdth his daughter, who trilled about the house for 
happiness, and, in their place, the “Herald” deputa¬ 
tion of two had repaired to the station to act as a 
reception committee. 

Far away the whistle of the express was heard, 
muffled to sweetness in the damp, and the drivers, 
whip in hand, came out upon the platform, and 
the loafers issued, also, to stand under the eaves 
and lean their backs against the drier boards, pre¬ 
paring to eye the travellers with languid raillery. 

Mr. Parker, very nervous himself, felt the old 
man’s elbow trembling against his own as the great 
engine, reeking in the mist, and sending great 
clouds of white vapor up to the sky, rushed by them, 
and came to a standstill beyond the platform. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 317 

Fisbee and the foreman made haste to the nearest 
vestibule, and were gazing blankly at its barred 
approaches when they heard a tremulous laugh 
behind them and an exclamation. 

“Upstairs and downstairs and in my lady’s cham¬ 
ber! Just behind you, dear.” 

Turning quickly, Parker beheld a blushing and 
smiling little vision, a vision with light-brown hair, 
a vision enveloped in a light-brown rain-cloak and 
with brown gloves, from which the handles of a 
big brown travelling bag were let fall, as the vision 
disappeared under the cotton umbrella, while the 
smitten Judd Bennett reeled gasping against the 
station. 

“Dearest,” the girl cried to the old man, “you 
were looking for me between the devil and deep sea 
—the parlor-car and the smoker. I’ve given up 
cigars, and I’ve begun to study economy, so I didn’t 
come on either.” 

There was but this one passenger for Plattville; 
two enormous trunks thundered out of the baggage 
car onto the truck, and it was the work of no more 
than a minute for Judd to hale them to the top of 
the omnibus (he well wished to wear them next his 
heart, but their dimensions forbade the thought), 


318 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

and immediately he cracked his whip and drove off 
furiously through the mud to deposit his freight at 
the Briscoes’. Parker, Mr. Fisbee, and the new 
editor-in-chief set forth, directly after, in one of the 
waiting cut-unders, the foreman in front with the 
driver, and holding the big brown bag on his knees 
in much the same manner he would have held an 
alien, yet respected, infant. 



CHAPTER XIV 


A RESCUE 



I HE drizzle and mist blew in under the top of 


the cut-under as they drove rapidly into 


town, and bright little drops sparkled on 
the fair hair above the new editor’s forehead and on 
the long lashes above the new editor’s cheeks. 

She shook these transient gems off lightly, as she 
paused in the doorway of the office at the top of the 
rickety stairway. Mr. Schofield had just added the 
last touch to his decorations and managed to slide 
into his coat as the party came up the stairs, and 
now, perspiring, proud, embarrassed, he assumed 
an attitude at once deprecatory of his endeavors and 
pointedly expectant of commendation for the results. 
(He was a modest youth and a conscious; after his 
first sight of her, as she stood in the doorway, it was 
several days before he could lift his distressed eyes 
under her glance, or, indeed, dare to avail himself of 
more than a hasty and fluttering stare at her when 
her back was turned.) As she entered the room, he 


S19 


320 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

sidled along the wall and laughed sheeoishly at noth¬ 
ing. 

Every chair in the room was ornamented with one 
of his blue rosettes, tied carefully (and firmly) to the 
middle slat of each chair-back. There had been 
several yards of ribbon left over, and there was a 
hard knot of glossy satin on each of the ink-stands 
and on the door-knobs; a blue band, passing around 
the stovepipe, imparted an antique rakishness sug¬ 
gestive of the charioteer; and a number of streamers, 
suspended from a hook in the ceiling, encouraged a 
supposition that the employees of the “Herald” 
contemplated the intricate festivities of May Day. 
It needed no genius to infer that these garnitures 
had not embellished the editorial chamber during 
Mr. Harkless’s activity, but, on the contrary, had 
been put in place that very morning. Mr. Fisbee 
had not known of the decorations, and, as liis glance 
fell upon them, a faint look of pain passed over his 
brow; but the girl examined the room with a danc¬ 
ing eye, and there were both tears and laughter in 
her heart. 

“How beautiful!” she cried. “How beautiful!” 
She crossed the room and gave her hand to Ross. 
“It is Mr. Schofield, isn’t it? The ribbons are de- 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 321 

lightful. I didn’t know Mr. Harkless’s room was 
so pretty.” 

Ross looked out of the window and laughed as he 
took her hand (which he shook with a long up and 
down motion), but he was set at better ease by her 
apparent unrecognition of the fact that the decora¬ 
tions were for her. “Oh, it ain’t much, I reckon,” 
he replied, and continued to look out of the window 
and laugh. 

She went to the desk and removed her gloves and 
laid her rain-coat over a chair near by. “Is this 
Mr. Harkless’s chair.^” she asked, and, Fisbee an¬ 
swering that it was, she looked gravely at it for a 
morrent, passed her hand gently over the back of it, 
and then, throwing the rain-cloak over another 
chair, said cheerily: 

“Do you know, I think the first thing for us to 
do will be to dust everything very carefully.” 

“You remember I was confident she would know 
precisely where to begin was Fisbee’s earnest 
whisper in the willing ear of the long foreman. “Not 
an instant’s indecision, was there 

“No, siree!” replied the other; and, as he went 
down to the press-room to hunt for a feather-duster 
which he thought might be found there, he collared 


322 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


Bud Tip worthy, who, not admitted to the, conclave 
of his superiors, was whistling on the rainy stairway. 
“You hustle and find that dust brush we used to 
have. Bud,” said Parker. And presently, as they 
rummaged in the nooks and crannies about the ma¬ 
chinery, he melted to his small assistant. “The 
paper is saved, Buddie—saved by an angel in light 
brown. You can tell it by the look of her.” 

“Gee!” said Bud. 

Mr. Schofield had come, blushing, to join them. 
“Say, Gale, did you notice the color of her eyes?” 

“Yes; they’re gray.” 

“I thought so, too, show day, and at Kedge Hal¬ 
loway’s lecture; but, say. Gale, they’re kind of 
changeable. When she come in upstairs with you 
and Fisbee, they were jest as blue!—near matched 
the color of our ribbons.” 

“Gee!” repeated Mr. Tip worthy. 

When the editorial chamber had been made so 
neat that it almost glowed—though it could never 
be expected to shine as did Fisbee and Galeb Parker 
and Ross Schofield that morning—the editor took 
her seat at the desk and looked over the few items 
the gentlemen had already compiled for her perusal. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 323 


Mr. Parker explained many technicalities peculiar 
to the Carlow “Herald,” translated some phrases 
of the printing-room, and enabled her to grasp the 
amount of matter needed to fill the morrow’s issue. 

When Parker finished, the three incompetents sat 
watching the little figure with the expression of 
hopeful and trusting ten-iers. She knit her brow 
for a second—but she did not betray an instant’s 
indecision. 

“I think we should have regular market reports,” 
she announced, thoughtfully. “I am sure Mr. 
Harkless would approve. Don’t you think he 
would?” She turned to Parker. 

“Market reports!” Mr. Fisbee exclaimed. “I 
should never have thought of market reports, nor, 
do I imagine, would either of my—my associates. 
A woman to conceive the idea of market reports!” 

The editor blushed. “Why, who would, dear, if 
not a woman, or a speculator, and I’m not a specula¬ 
tor; and neither are you, and that’s the reason you 
didn’t think of them. So, Mr. Parker, as there is 
so much pressure, and if you don’t mind continuing 
to act as reporter as well as compositor until after to¬ 
morrow, and if it isn’t too wet—^you must take an 
umbrella—would it be too much bother if you went 


324 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


around to all the shops— stores, I mean— to all the 
grocers’, and the butchers’, and that leather place we 
passed, the tannery?—and if there’s one of those 
places where they bring cows, would it be too much 
to ask you to stop there?—and at the flour-mill, if 
it isn’t too far?—and at the dry-goods store? And 
you must take a blank-book and sharpened pencil. 
And will you price everything, please, and jot down 
how much things are?” 

Orders received, the impetuous Parker was de¬ 
parting on the instant, when she stopped him with 
a little cry: “But you haven’t any umbrella!” And 
he forced her own, a slender wand, upon him; it 
bore a cunningly wrought handle and its fabric was 
of glistening ^ilk. The foreman, unable to decline 
it, thanked her awkwardly, and, as she turned to 
speak to Fisbee, bolted out of the door and ran 
down the steps without unfolding the umbrella : and, 
as he made for Mr. Martin’s emporium, he buttoned 
it securely under his long “Prince Albert,” deter¬ 
mined that not a drop of water should touch and 
ruin so delicate a thing. Thus he carried it, tri¬ 
umphantly dry, through the course of his reportings 
of that day. 

When he had gone the editor laid her hand n 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 325 


Fisbee’s arm. “Dear,” she said, “do you think 
you would take cold if you went over to the hotel 
and made a note of all the arrivals for the last week 
—and the departures, too.^ I noticed that Mr. 
Harkless always filled two or three—sticks, isn’t it? 
—with them and things about them, and somehow 
it ‘read’ very nicely. You must ask the landlord 
all about them; and, if there aren’t any, we can take 
up the same amount of space lamenting the dull 
times, just as he used to. You see I’ve read the 
‘Herald’ faithfully; isn’t it a good thing I always 
subscribed for it?” She patted Fisbee’s cheek, and 
laughed gaily into his mild, vague old eyes. 

“It won’t be this scramble to ‘fill up’ much longer. 
I have plans, gentlemen,” she cried, “and before 
long we will print news. And we must buy ‘plate 
matter’ instead of ‘patent insides’; and I had a talk 
with the Associated Press people in Rouen—but 
that’s for afterwhile. And I went to the hospital 
this morning before I left. They wouldn’t let me see 
him again, but they told me all about him, and he’s 
better; and I got Tom to go to the jail—he was so 
mystified, he doesn’t know what I wanted it for—and 
he saw some of those beasts, and I can do a column 
of description besides an editorial about them, and 


3£6 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


I will be fierce enough to suit Carlow, you may be- 
lieve that. And IVe been talking to Senator Burns 
—that is, listening to Senator Burns, which is much 
stupider—and I think I can do an article on national 
politics. I’m not very well up on local issues yet, but 
I—” She broke off suddenly. “There! I think we 
can get out to-morrow’s number without any trouble. 
By the time you get back from the hotel, father. I’ll 
have half my stuff written—‘written up,’ I mean. 
Take your big umbrella and go, dear, and please 
ask at the express office if my typewriter has 
come.” 

She laughed again with sheer delight, like a child, 
and ran to the corner and got the cotton umbrella and 
placed it in the old man’s hand. As he reached the 
door, she called after him: “Wait!” and went to him 
and knelt before him, and, with the humblest, proud¬ 
est grace in the world, turned up his trousers to keep 
them from the mud. Ross Schofield had never con¬ 
sidered Mr. Fisbee a particularly sacred sort of per¬ 
son, but he did from that moment. The old man 
made some timid protest, at his daughter’s action, 
but she answered: “The great ladies used to buckle 
the Chevalier Bayard’s spurs for him, and you’re a 
great deal nicer than the Chev— You haven't any 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 327 


rubbers! I don’t believe any of you have any rub¬ 
bers!” And not until both Fisbee and Mr. Scho¬ 
field had promised to purchase overshoes at once, 
and in the meantime not to step in any puddles, 
would she let her father depart upon his errand. He 
crossed the Square with the strangest, jauntiest step 
ever seen in Plattville. Solomon Tibbs had a warm 
argument with Miss Selina as to his identity. Miss 
Selina maintaining that the figure under the big um¬ 
brella—only the legs and coat-tails were visible to 
them—was that of a stranger, probably an English¬ 
man. 

In the ‘‘Herald” office the editor turned, smiling, 
to the paper’s remaining vassal. “Mr. Schofield, I 
heard some talk in Rouen of an oil company that 
had been formed to prospect for kerosene in Carlow 
County. Do you know anything about it.?” 

Ross, surfeited with honor, terror, and possessed 
by a sweet distress at finding himself tete-a-tete with 
the lady, looked at the wall and replied: 

“Oh, it’s that Eph Watts’s foolishness.” 

“Do you know if they have begun to dig for it 
yet?” 

“Ma’am?” said Ross. 

“Have they begun the diggings yet?” 


328 THE GENTLEMAI'T FROM INDIANA 


“No, ma’am; I think not. They’ve got a con- 
trapshun fixed up about three mile south. I don’t 
reckon they’ve begun yet, hardly; they’re gittin’ the 
machinery in place. I heard Eph say they’d begin 

to bore— dig, I mean, ma’am, I meant to say dig-” 

He stopped, utterly confused and unhappy; and she 
understood his manly purpose, and knew him for 
a gentleman whom she liked. 

“You mustn’t be too much surprised,” she said; 
“but in spite of my ignorance about such things, I 
mean to devote a good deal of space to the oil com¬ 
pany; it may come to be of great importance to Car- 
low. We won’t go into it in to-morrow’s paper, be¬ 
yond an item or so; but do you think you could pos¬ 
sibly find Mr. Watts and ask him for some informa¬ 
tion as to their progress, and if it would be too much 
trouble for him to call here sone time to-morrow 
afternoon, or the day afterI want him to give 
me an interview if he will. Tell him, please, he will 
very greatly oblige us.” 

“Oh, he’ll come all right,” answered her com¬ 
panion, quickly. “I’ll take Tibbs’s buggy and go 
down there right off. Eph won’t lose no time git¬ 
tin’ herer And with this encouraging assurance 
he was flying forth, when he, like the others, was 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA SW 

detained by her solicitous care. She was a born 
mother. He protested that in the buggy he would 
be perfectly sheltered; besides, there wasn’t another 
umbrella about the place; he liked to get wet, any¬ 
way; had always loved rain. The end of it was that 
he went away in a sort of tremor, wearing her rain- 
cloak over his shoulders, which garment, as it cov¬ 
ered its owner completely when she wore it, hung 
almost to his knees. He darted around a corner; 
and there, breathing deeply, tenderly removed it; 
then, borrowing paper and cord at a neighboring 
store, wrapped it neatly, and stole back to the print¬ 
ing-office on the ground floor of the “Herald” build¬ 
ing, and left the package in charge of Bud Tip¬ 
worthy, mysteriously charging him to care for it as 
for his own life, and not to open it, but if the lady so 
much as set one foot out of doors before his return, 
to hand it to her with the message: “He borrowed 
another off J. Hankins.” 

Left alone, the lady went to the desk and stood for 
a time looking gravely at Harkless’s chair. She 
touched it gently, as she had touched it once before 
that morning, and then she spoke to it as if he were 
sitting there, and as she would not have spoken, had 
^ been sitting there. 


330 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“You didn’t want gratitude, did you?” she whis¬ 
pered, with sad lips. 

Soon she smiled at the blue ribbons, patted the 
chair gaily on the back, and, seizing upon pencil and 
pad, dashed into her work with rare energy. She 
bent low over the desk, her pencil moving rapidly, 
and, except for a momentary interruption from Mr. 
Tip worthy, she seemed not to pause for breath: cer¬ 
tainly her pencil did not. She had covered many 
sheets when her father returned; and, as he came in 
softly, not to disturb her, she was so deeply en¬ 
grossed she did not hear him; aor did she look up 
when Parker entered, but pursued the formulation 
of her fast-flying ideas with the same single purpose 
and abandon; so the two men sat and waited while 
their chieftainess wrote absorbedly. At last she 
glanced up and made a little startled exclamation at 
seeing them there, and then gave them cheery greet¬ 
ing. Each placed several scribbled sheets before 
her, and she, having first assured herself that Fisbee 
had bought his overshoes, and having expressed a 
fear that Mr. Parker had found her umbrella too 
small, as he looked damp (and indeed he was damp), 
cried praises on their notes and offered the reporters 
great applause. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 331 


‘Tt is all so splendid!” she cried. “How could 
you do it so quicklyAnd in the rain, too! This is 
exactly what we need. I’ve done most of the things 
I mentioned, I think, and made a draught of some 
plans for hereafter. And about that man’s coming 
out for Congress, I must tell you it is my greatest 
hope that he will. We can let it go until he does, 
and then— But doesn’t it seem to you that it would 
be a good notion for the ‘Herald’ to have a woman’s 
page—‘For Feminine Readers,’ or, ‘Of Interest to 
Women’—once a week.^” 

“A woman’s page!” exclaimed Fisbee. “I could 
never have thought of that, could you, Mr. Parker.^” 
“And now,” she continued, “I think that when 
I’ve gone over what I’ve written and beat it into 
better shape I shall be ready for something to eat. 
Isn’t it almost time for luncheon.?” 

This simple, and surely natural, inquiry had a sin¬ 
gular, devastating effect upon her hearers. They 
looked upon each other with fallen jaws and com¬ 
plete stupefaction. The old man began to grow 
pale, and Parker glared about him with a wild eye. 
Fortunately, the editor was too busy at her work to 
notice their agitation; she applied herself to making 
alterations here and there, sometimes frowningly 


S32 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


crossing out whole lines and even paragraphs, some¬ 
times smiling and beaming at the writing; and, as 
she bent earnestly over the paper, against the dark¬ 
ness of the rainy day, the glamour about her fair hair 
was like a light in the room. To the minds of her 
two companions, this lustre was a gentle but unbear¬ 
able accusation; and each dreaded the moment when 
her work should be finished, with a great dread. 
There was a small “store-room” adjoining the of¬ 
fice, and presently Mr. Parker, sweating at the brow, 
walked in there. The old man gave him a look of 
despairing reproach, but in a moment the foreman’s 
voice was heard: “Oh, IMr. Fisbee, can you step 
here a second.^” 

“Yes, indeed!” was Fisbee’s reply; and he fled 
guiltily into the “store-room,” and Parker closed 
the door. They stood knee-deep in the clutter and 
lumber, facing each other abjectly. 

“Well, we’re both done, anyway, Mr. Fisbee,” 
remarked the foreman. 

“Indubitably, Mr. Parker,” the old man an¬ 
swered; “it is too true.” 

“Never to think a blame thing about dinner for 
her!” Parker continued, remorsefully. “And her a 
lady that can turn off copy like a rotary snow- 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 333 

plough in a Dakota blizzard! Did you see the 
sheets she’s piled up on that desk?” 

“There is no cafe—nothing—in Plattville, that 
could prepare food worthy of her,” groaned Fisbee. 
“Nothing!” 

“And we never thought of it. Never made a 
single arrangement. Never struck us she didn’t 
live on keeping us dry and being good, I guess.” 

“How can I go there and tell her that?” 

“Lord!” 

“She cannot go to the hotel-” 

“Well, I guess not! It ain’t fit for her. Lum’s 
table is hard enough on a strong man. Landis 
doesn’t know a good cake from a Fiji missionary 
pudding. I don’t expect pie is much her style, and, 
besides, the Palace Hotel pies—well!—the boss was 
a mighty uncomplaining man, but I used to notice 
his articles on field drainage got kind of sour and 
low-spirited when they’d been having more than the 
regular allowance of pie for dinner. She can’t go 
there anyway; it’s no use; it’s after two o’clock, and 
the dining-room shuts off at one. I wonder what 
kind of cake she likes best.” 

“I don’t know,” said the perplexed Fisbee. “If 
we ask her-” 


334 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


‘Tf we could sort of get it out of her diplomati¬ 
cally, we could telegraph to Rouen for a good one.” 

“Ha!” said the other, brightening up. “You 
try it, Mr. Parker. I fear I have not much skill in 
diplomacy, but if you-” 

The compositeur’s mouth drooped at the comers, 
and he interrupted gloomily: “But it wouldn’t get 
here till to-morrow.” 

“True; it would not.” 

They fell into a despondent reverie, with their 
chins in their bosoms. There came a cheerful voice 
from the next room, but to them it brought no 
cheer; in their ears it sounded weak from the need 
of food and faint with piteous reproach. 

“Father, aren’t you coming to have luncheon 
with me?” 

“Mr. Parker, what are we to do?” whispered the 
old man, hoarsely. 

“Is it too far to take her to Briscoes’?” 

“In the rain?” 

“Take her with you to Tibbs’s.” 

“Their noon meal is long since over; and their 
larder is not—is not—extensive.” 

“Father!” called the girl. She was stirring; they 
could hear her moving about the room. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 335 


“You’ve got to go in and tell her,” said the fore¬ 
man, desperately, and together they stumbled into 
the room. A small table at one end of it was laid 
with a snowy cloth and there was a fragrance of tea, 
and, amidst various dainties, one caught a ghmpse 
of cold chicken and lettuce leaves. Fisbee stopped, 
dumfounded, but the foreman, after stammeringly 
declining an invitation to partake, alleging that his 
own meal awaited, sped down to the printing-room, 
and seized upon Bud Tipworthy with a heavy hand. 

“Where did all that come from, up there?” 

“Leave go me! What ‘all that’?” 

“All that tea and chicken and salad and wafers— 
all kinds of things; sardines, for all I know!” 

“They come in Briscoes’ buckboard while you 
was gone. Briscoes sent ’em in a basket; I took 
’em up and she set the basket under the table. 
You’d seen it if you’d ’a’ looked. Quit that!” And 
it was unjust to cuff the perfectly innocent and mys¬ 
tified Bud, and worse not to tell him what the punish¬ 
ment was for. 

Before the day was over, system had been intro¬ 
duced, and the “Herald” was running on it: and 
all that warm, rainy afternoon, the editor and Fisbee 
worked in the editorial rooms, Parker and Bud 


336 THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 


and Mr. Schofield (after his return with the items 
and a courteous message from Ephraim Watts) 
bent over the forms downstairs, and Uncle Xeno¬ 
phon was cleaning the store-room and scrubbing 
the floor. 

An extraordinary number of errands took the 
various members of the printing force up to see the 
editor-in-chief, literally to see the editor-in-chief; it 
was hard to believe that the presence had not flown 
—hard to keep believing, without the repeated tes¬ 
timony of sight, that the dingy room upstairs was 
actually the setting for their jewel; and a jewel 
they swore she was. The printers came down 
chuckling and gurgling after each interview; it was 
partly the thought that she belonged to the “Herald,” 
their paper. Once Ross, as he cut down one of 
the temporarily distended advertisements, looked up 
and caught the foreman giggling to himself. 

“What in the name of common-sense you laugh¬ 
in’ at. Gale?” he asked. 

“What are you laughing at?” rejoined the other. 

“I dunno!” 

The day wore on, wet and dreary outside, but 
all within the “Herald’s” bosom was snug and 
busy and murmurous with the healthy thrum of 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 337 

life and prosperity renewed. Toward six o’clock, 
system accomplished, the new guiding-spirit was 
deliberating on a policy as Harkless would conceive 
a policy, were he there, when Minnie Briscoe ran 
joyously up the stairs, plunged into the room, water¬ 
proofed and radiant, and caught her friend in her 
eager arms, and put an end to policy for that day. 

But policy and labor did not end at twilight 
every day; there were evenings, as in the time of 
Harkless, when lamps shone from the upper windows 
of the “Herald” building. For the little editor 
worked hard, and sometimes she worked late; she 
always worked early. She made some mistakes at 
first, and one or two blunders which she took more 
seriously than any one else did. But she found a 
remedy for all such results of her inexperience, and 
she developed experience. She set at her task with 
the energy of her youthfulness and no limit to her 
ambition, and she felt that Harkless had prepared 
the way for a wide expansion of the paper’s interests; 
wider than he knew. She had a belief that there 
were possibilities for a country newspaper, and she 
brought a fresh point of view to operate in a situa¬ 
tion where Harkless had fallen, perhaps, too much 
in the rut; and she watched every chance with a 


S38 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


keen eye and looked ahead of her with clear fore¬ 
sight. What she waited and yearned for and dreaded, 
was the time when a copy of the new “Herald” 
should be placed in the trembling hands of the man 
who lay in the Rouen hospital. Then, she felt, 
if he, unaware of her identity, should place every¬ 
thing in her hands unreservedly, that would be a 
tribute to her work—^and how hard she would labor 
to deserve it! After a time, she began to realize 
that, as his representative and the editor of the 
“Herald,” she had become a factor in district 
politics. It took her breath—but with a gasp of 
delight, for there was something she wanted to do. 

Above all, she brought a light heart to her work. 
One evening in the latter part of that first we«k of 
the new regime, Parker perceived Bud Tipworthy 
standing in the doorway of the printing-room, 
beckoning him silently to come without. 

“What’s the matter, Buddie?” 

“Listen. She’s singin’ over her work.” 

Parker stepped outside. On the pavement, people 
had stopped to listen; they stood in the shadow, 
looking up with parted lips at the open, lighted 
windows, whence came a clear, soft, reaching voice, 
lifted in song; now it swelled louder, unconsciously; 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 339 

now its volume was more slender and it melted 
liquidly into the night; again, it trembled and rose 
and dwelt in the ear, strong and pure; and, hearing 
it, you sighed with unknown longings. It was the 
“Angels’ Serenade.” 

Bud Tipworthy’s sister, Cynthia, was with him, 
and Parker saw that she turned from the window 
and that she was crying, quietly; she put her hand 
on the boy’s shoulder and patted it with a forlorn 
gesture which, to the foreman’s eye, was as graceful 
as it was sad. He moved closer to Bud and his big 
hand fell on Cynthia’s brother’s other shoulder, as 
he realized that red hair could look pretty some¬ 
times; and he wondered why the editor’s singing 
made Cynthy cry; and at the same time he decided 
to be mighty good to Bud henceforth. The spell of 
night and song was on him; that and something 
more; for it is a strange, inexplicable fact that the 
most practical chief ever known to the “Herald” 
had a singularly sentimental influence over her sub¬ 
ordinates, from the moment of her arrival. Under 
Harkless’s domination there had been no more 
steadfast bachelors in Carlow than Ross Schofield 
and Caleb Parker, and, like timorous youths in a 
graveyard, daring and mocking the ghosts in order 


S40 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


to assuage their own fears, they had so jibed and 
jeered at the married state that there was talk of 
urging the minister to preach at them; but now let 
it be recorded that at the moment Caleb laid his 
hand on Bud’s other shoulder, his associate, Mr. 
Schofield, was enjoying a walk in the far end of 
town with a widow, and it is not to be doubted that 
Mr. Tipworthy’s heart, also, was no longer in his 
possession, though, as it was after eight o’clock, the 
damsel of his desire had probably long since retired 
to her couch. 

For some faint light on the cause of these spells, 
we must turn to a comment made by the invaluable 
Mr. Martin some time afterward. Referring to the 
lady to whose voice he was now listening in silence 
(which shows how great the enthralling of her voice 
was), he said: “I^dien you saw her, or heard her, or 
managed to be around, any, where she was, why, if 
you couldn’t git up no hope of marryin’ her, you 
wanted to marry somebody’^ 

Mr. Lige Willetts, riding idly by, drew rein in 
front of the lighted windows, and listened with the 
others. Presently he leaned from his horse and 
whispered to a man near him : 

‘T know that song.” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 341 

“Do you?” whispered the other. 

“Yes; he and I heard her sing it, the night he was 
shot.” 

“So!” 

“Yes, sir. It’s by Beethoven.” 

“Is it?” 

“It’s a seraphic song,” continued Lige. 

“No!” exclaimed his friend; then, shaking his 
head, he sighed: “Well, it’s mighty sweet.” 

The song was suddenly woven into laughter in 
the unseen chamber, and the lights in the windows 
went out, and a small lady and a tall lady and a thin 
old man, all three laughing and talking happily, 
came down and drove off in the Briscoe buckboard. 
The little crowd dispersed quietly; Lige Willetts 
clucked to his horse and cantered away to overtake 
the buckboard; William Todd took his courage 
between his teeth, and, the song ringing in his ears, 
made a desperate resolve to call upon Miss Bard- 
lock that evening, in spite of its being a week day, 
and Caleb Parker gently and stammeringly asked 
Cynthia if she would wait till he shut up the shop, 
and let him walk home with her and Bud. 

Soon the Square was quiet as before, and there 
was naught but peace under the big stars of July. 


342 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


That day the news had come that Harkless, after 
weeks of alternate improvement and relapse, haz¬ 
ardously lingering in the borderland of shadows, 
had passed the crucial point and was convalescent. 
His recovery was assured. But from their first 
word of him, from the message that he was found 
and was alive, none of the people of Carlow had 
really doubted it. They are simple country people, 
and they know that God is good. 


CHAPTER XV 


NETTLES 


T WO men who have been comrades and class¬ 
mates at the Alma Mater of John Harkless 
and Tom Meredith; two who have belonged 
to the same club and roomed in the same entry; 
who have pooled their clothes and money in a com¬ 
mon stock for either to draw on; who have shared 
the fortunes of athletic war, triumphing together, 
sometimes with an intense triumphancy; two men 
who were once boys getting hazed together, hazing in 
no unkindly fashion in their turn, always helping 
each other to stuff brains the night before an exam¬ 
ination and to blow away the suffocating statistics 
like foam the night after; singing, wrestling, dancing, 
laughing, succeeding together, through the four 
kindest years of life; two such brave companions, 
meeting in the after years, are touchingly tender and 
caressive of each other, but the tenderness takes the 
shy. United States form of insulting epithets, and 

the caresses are blows. If John Harkless had been 
343 


S44 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


in health, uninjured and prosperous, Tom Meredith 
could no more have thrown himself on his knees 
beside him and called him “old friend” than he 
could have danced on the slack-wire. 

One day they thought the patient sleeping; the 
nurse fanned him softly, and Meredith had stolen in 
and was sitting by the cot. One of Harkless’s eyes 
had been freed of the bandage, and, when Tom came 
in, it was closed; but, by and by, Meredith became 
aware that the unbandaged eye had opened and that 
it was suffused with a pathetic moisture; yet it 
twinkled with a comprehending light, and John 
knew that it was his old Tom Meredith who was sit¬ 
ting beside him, with the air of having sat there very 
often before. But this bald, middle-aged young 
man, not without elegance, yet a prosperous burgher 
for all that—was this the slim, rollicking broth of a 
boy whose thick auburn hair used to make one 
streak of flame as he spun around the bases on a 
home run.?^ Without doubt it was the stupendous 
fact, wrought by the alchemy of seven years. 

For, though seven years be a mere breath in the 
memories of the old, it is a long transfiguration to 
him whose first youth is passing, and who finds 
Unsolicited additions accruing to some parts of hi.? 


raE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 345 


being and strange deprivations in others, and upon 
whom the unhappy realization begins to be borne in, 
that his is no particular case, and that he of all the 
world is not to be spared, but, like his forbears, 
must inevitably wriggle in the disguising crucible of 
time. And, though men accept it with apparently 
patient humor, the first realization that people do 
grow old, and that they do it before they have had 
time to be young, is apt to come like a shock. 

Perhaps not even in the interr-iinable months of 
Carlow had Harkless realized the length of seven 
years so keenly as he did when he beheld his old 
friend at his bedside. How men may be warped 
apart in seven years, especially in the seven years 
between twenty-three and thirty! At the latter age 
you may return to the inseparable of seven years 
before and speak not the same language; you find 
no heartiness to carry on with each other after half 
an hour. Not so these classmates, who had known 
each other to the bone. 

Ah, yes, it was Tom Meredith, the same lad, in 
spite of his masquerade of flesh; and Helen was 
right: Tom had not forgotten. 

“It’s the old horse-thief!” John murmured, tremu¬ 
lously. 


346 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“You go plumb to thunder,” answered Meredith 
between gulps. 

When he was well enough, they had long talks; 
and at other times Harkless lay by the window, and 
breathed deep of the fresh air, while Meredith 
attended to his correspondence for him, and read the 
papers to him. But there was one phenomenon of 
literature the convalescent insisted upon observing 
for himself, and which he went over again and again, 
to the detriment of his single unswathed eye, and 
this was the Carlow “Herald.” 

The first letter he had read to him was one from 
Fisbee stating that the crippled forces left in charge 
had found themselves almost distraught in their 
efforts to carry on the paper (as their chief might 
conclude for himself on perusal of the issues of the 
first fortnight of his absence), and they had made 
bold to avail themselves of the services of a young 
relative of the writer’s from a distant city—a 
capable journalist, who had no other employment 
for the present, and who had accepted the respon¬ 
sibilities of the “Herald” temporarily. There fol¬ 
lowed a note from Parker, announcing that IVIr. 
Fisbee’s relative was a bird, and was the kind tr 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 347 

make the “Herald” hum. They hoped Mr. Harkless 
would approve of their bespeaking the new hand on 
the sheet.; the paper must have suspended otherwise. 
Harkless, almost overcome by his surprise that 
Fisbee possessed a relative, dictated a hearty and 
grateful indorsement of their action, and, soon after, 
received a typewritten rejoinder, somewhat com¬ 
plicated in the reading, because of the numerous 
type errors and their corrections. The missive was 
signed “H. Fisbee,” in a strapping masculine hand 
that suggested six feet of enterprise and muscle 
spattering ink on its shirt sleeves. 

John groaned and fretted over the writhings of 
the “Herald’s” headless fortnight, but, perusing the 
issues produced under the domination of H. Fisbee, 
he started now and then, and chuckled at some 
shrewd felicities of management, or stared, puzzled, 
over an oddity, but came to a feeling of vast relief; 
and, when the question of H. Fisbee’s salary was 
settled and the tenancy assured, he sank into a 
repose of mind. H. Fisbee might be an eccentric 
fellow, but he knew his business, and, apparently, 
he knew something of other business as well, for 
he wrote at length concerning the Carlow oil fields, 
urging Harkless to take shares in Mr. Watts’s com- 


548 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


pany while the stock was very low, two wells having 
been sunk without satisfactory results. H. Fisbee 
explained with exceeding technicality his reasons for 
believing that the third well would strike oil. 

But with his ease of mind regarding the “Herald,” 
Harkless found himself possessed by apathy. He 
fretted no longer to get back to Plattville. With 
the prospect of return it seemed an emptiness glared 
at him from hollow sockets, and the thought of the 
dreary routine he must follow when he went back 
gave him the same faint nausea he had felt the even¬ 
ing after the circus. And, though it was partly the 
long sweat of anguish which had benumbed him, his 
apathy was pierced, at times, by a bodily horror of 
the scene of his struggle. At night he faced the 
grotesque masks of the Cross-Roads men and the 
brutal odds again; over and over he felt the blows, 
and clapped his hand to where the close fire of Bob 
Skillett’s pistol burned his body. 

And, except for the release from pain, he re¬ 
joiced less and less in his recovery. He remem¬ 
bered a tedious sickness of his childhood and how 
beautiful he had thought the world, when he began 
to get well, how electric the open air blowing in 
at the window, how green the smile of earth, and 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 349 


how glorious to live and see the open day again. 
He had none of that feeling now. No pretty vision 
came again near his bed, and he beheld his con¬ 
valescence as a mistake. He had come to a jump¬ 
ing-off place in his life—why had they not let him 
jump.^ What was there left but the weary plod, 
plod, and dust of years 

He could have gone back to Carlow in better 
spirit if it had not been for the few dazzling hours 
of companionship which had transformed it to a 
paradise, but, gone, left a desert. She, by the 
sight of her, had made him wish to live, and now, 
that he saw her no more, she made him wish to 
die. How little she had cared for him, since she 
told him she did not care, when he had not meant 
to ask her. He was weary, and at last he longed 
to find the line of least resistance and follow it; 
he had done hard things for a long time, but now 
he wanted to do something easy. Under the new 
genius—who was already urging that the paper 
should be made a daily—the “Herald” could get 
along without him; and the “White-Caps” would 
bother Carlow no longer; and he thought that Kedge 
Halloway, an honest man, if a dull one, was sure 
to be renominated for Congress at the district con- 


350 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

vention which was to meet at Plattville in Sep¬ 
tember—these were his responsibilities, and they 
did not fret him. Everything was all right. There 
was only one thought which thrilled him: his im¬ 
pression that she had come to the hospital to see 
him was not a delusion; she had really been there 
—as a humane, Christian person, he said to him¬ 
self. One day he told Meredith of his vision, and 
Tom explained that it was no conjuration of fever. 

‘‘But I thought she’d gone abroad,” said Hark- 
less, staring. 

“They had planned to,” answered his friend. 
“They gave it up for some reason. Uncle Henry 
decided that he wasn’t strong enough for the trip, 
or something.” 

“Then—is she—is she here?” 

“No; Helen is never here in summer. When she 
came back from Plattville, she went north, some¬ 
where, to join people she had promised, I think.” 
Meredith had as yet no inkling or suspicion that his 
adopted cousin had returned to Plattville. What 
he told Harkless was what his aunt had told him, 
and he accepted it as the truth. 

Mrs. Sherwood (for she was both Mr. and Mrs. 
Sherwood) had always considered Fisbee an enig- 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 351 

malic rascal, and she regarded Helen’s defection to 
him in the light of a family scandal to be hushed 
up, as well as a scalding pain to be borne. Some 
day the unkind girl-errant would “return to her 
wisdom and her duty”; meanwhile, the less known 
about it the better. 

Meredith talked very little to Harkless of his 
cousin, beyond hghtly commenting on the pleasure 
and oddity of their meeting, and telling him of 
her friendly anxiety about his recovery; he said 
she had perfect confidence from the first that he 
would recover. Harkless had said a word or two 
in his delirium and a word or two out of it, and 
these, with once a sudden brow of suffering, and a 
difference Meredith felt in Helen’s manner when 
they stood together by the sick man’s bedside, had 
given the young man a strong impression, partly 
intuitive, that in spite of the short time the two 
had known each other, something had happened 
between them at Plattville, and he ventured a guess 
which was not far from the truth. Altogether, 
the thing was fairly plain—a sad lover is not so 
hard to read—and Meredith was sorry, for they 
were the two people he liked best on earth. 

The young man carried his gay presence daily 


352 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


to the hospital, where Harkless now lay in a pleasant 
room of his own, and he tried to keep his friend 
cheery, which was an easy matter on the surface, 
for the journalist tirmed ever a mask of jokes upon 
him; but it was not hard for one who liked him as 
Meredith did to see through to the melancholy 
underneath. After his one reference to Helen, John 
was entirely silent of her, and Meredith came to 
feel that both would be embarrassed if occasion 
should rise and even her name again be mentioned 
between them. 

He did not speak of his family connection with 
Mr. Fisbee to the invalid, for, although the connec¬ 
tion was distant, the old man was, in a way, the 
family skeleton, and Meredith had a strong sense 
of the decency of reserve in such a matter. There 
was one thing Fisbee’s shame had made the old 
man unable not to suppress when he told Parker 
his story; the wraith of a torrid palate had pursued 
him from his youth, and the days of drink and 
despair from which Harkless had saved him were 
not the first in his life. Meredith wondered as 
much as did Harkless where Fisbee had picked 
up the journalistic “young relative’’ who signed 
his extremely business-hke missives in such a 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 353 


thundering hand. It was evident that the old man 
was grateful to his patron, but it did not occur 
to Meredith that Fisbee’s daughter might have an 
even stronger sense of gratitude, one so strong 
that she could give all her young strength to work 
for the man who had been good to her father. 

There came a day in August when Meredith took 
the convalescent from the hospital in a victoria, 
and installed him in his own home. Harkless’s 
clothes hung on his big frame limply; however, 
there was a drift of light in his eyes as they drove 
slowly through the pretty streets of Rouen. The 
bandages and splints and drugs and swathings were 
all gone now, and his sole task was to gather strength. 
The thin face was sallow no longer; it was the color 
of ^evening shadows; indeed he lay among the 
cushions seemingly no more than a gaunt shadow 
of the late afternoon, looking old and gray and 
weary. They rolled along abusing each other, John 
'sometimes gi*ateful]y threatening his friend with 
violence. 

The victoria passed a stone house with wide 
lawns and an inhospitable air of wealth and im¬ 
portunate rank; over the sward two peacocks swung, 
ambulating like caravals in a green sea; and one 


354 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


expected a fine lady to come smiling and glittering 
from the door. Oddly enough, though he had never 
seen the place before, it struck Harkless with a 
sense of familiarity. “Who lives there.^” he asked 
abruptly. 

“Who lives there? On the left? Why that— 
that is the Sherwood place,” Meredith answered, 
in a tone which sounded as if he were not quite 
sure of it, but inclined to think his information 
correct. Harkless relapsed into silence. 

Meredith’s home was a few blocks further up the 
same street; a capacious house in the Western 
fashion of the Seventies. In front, on the lawn, 
there was a fountain with a leaping play of water; 
maples and shrubbery were everywhere; and here 
and there stood a stiff sentinel of Lombardy poplar. 
It was all cool and incongruous and comfortable; 
and, on the porch, sheltered from publicity by a 
multitude of palms and flowering plants, a white- 
jacketed negro appeared with a noble smile and a 
more important tray, whereon tinkled bedewed 
glasses and a crystal pitcher, against whose sides 
the ice clinked sweetly. There was a complement 
of straws. 

When they had helped him to an easy chair or 


THE GENTLEMAN FROIVI INDIANA 355 


the porch, Harkless whistled luxuriously. “Ah, my 
bachelor!” he exclaimed, as he selected a straw. 

“ ‘Who would fardels bear.?’ ” rejoined Mr. 
Meredith. Then came to the other a recollection 
of an auburn-haired ball player on whom the third 
strike had once been called while his eyes wandered 
tenderly to the grandstand, where the prettiest 
girl of that commencement week was sitting. 

“Have you forgot the ‘Indian Princess’.?” he 
asked. 

“You’re a dull old person,” Tom laughed. 
“Haven’t you discovered that ’tis they who forget 
us.? And why shouldn’t they? Do we remember 
well.?—anybody except just us two, I mean, of 
course.” 

“I’ve a notion we do, sometimes.” 

The other set his glass on the tray, and lit his 
cigarette. “Yes; when we’re unsuccessful. Then 
I think we do.” 

“That may be true.” 

“Of course it is. If a lady wishes to make an 
impression on me that is worth making, let her let 
me make none on her.” 

“You think it is always our vanity?” 

“Analyze it as your revered Thomas does and 


356 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


you shall reach the same conclusion. Let a girl 
reject you and—” Meredith broke off, cursing him¬ 
self inwardly, and, rising, cried gaily: “What profit- 
eth it a man if he gain the whole wisdom in regard 
to women and loseth not his own heart And 
neither of us is lacking a heart—though it may be; 
one can’t tell, one’s self; one has to find out about 
that from some girl. At least, I’m rather sure of 
mine; it’s difficult to give a tobacco-heart away; 
it’s drugged on the market. I’m going to bring out 
the dogs; I’m spending the summer at home just 
to give them daily exercise.” 

This explanation of his continued presence in 
Rouen struck John as quite as plausible as Mere¬ 
dith’s more seriously alleged reasons for not joining 
his mother and sister, at Winter Harbor. (He pos¬ 
sessed a mother, and, as he explained, he had also 
sisters to satiety, in point of numbers.) Harkless 
knew that Tom had stayed to look after him; and 
he thought there never was so poor a peg as him'’ 
self whereon to hang the warm mantle of such a 
friendship. He knew that other mantles of affec¬ 
tion and kindliness hung on that self-same peg, 
for he had been moved by the letters and visits 
from Carlow people, and he had heard the story 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 357 


of their descent upon the hospital, and of the march 
on the Cross-Roads. Many a good fellow, too, 
had come to see him during his better days— 
from Judge Briscoe, openly tender and solicitous, to 
the embarrassed William Todd, who fiddled at his 
hat and explained that, being as he was in town on 
business (a palpable fiction) he thought he’d look 
in to see if “they was any word would wish to be 
sent down to our city.” The good will the sick 
man had from every one touched him, and made 
him feel unworthy, and he could see nothing he had 
done to deserve it. Mr. Meredith could (and would 
not—openly, at least) have explained to him that 
it made not a great deal of difference what he did; 
it was what people thought he was. 

His host helped him upstairs after dinner, and 
showed him the room prepared for his occupancy. 
Harkless sank, sighing with weakness, into a deep 
chair, and Meredith went to a window-seat and 
stretched himself out for a smoke and chat. 

“Doesn’t it beat your time,” he said, cheerily, 
“to think of what’s become of all the old boys.^^ 
They turn up so differently from what we expected, 
when they turn up at all. We sized them up all 
right so far as character goes, I fancy, but we couldn’t 


358 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

size up the chances of life. Take poor old Pickle 
Haines: who’d have dreamed Pickle would shoot 
himself over a bankruptcy.^ I dare say that wasn’t 
all of it—might have been cherchez la femme, don’t 
you think? What do you make of Pickle’s case, 
John?” 

There was no answer. Harkless’s chair was di¬ 
rectly in front of the mantel-piece, and upon the 
carved wooden shelf, amongst tobacco-jars and little 
curios, cotillion favors and the like, there were 
scattered a number of photographs. One of these 
was that of a girl who looked straight out at you 
from a filigree frame; there was hardly a corner of 
the room where you could have stood without 
her clear, serious eyes seeming to rest upon yours. 

‘^Cherchez la femme?'^ repeated Tom, puflSng 
unconsciously. “Pickle was a good fellow, but he 
had the deuce of an eye for a girl. Do you remem¬ 
ber—” He stopped short, and saw the man and 
the photograph looking at each other. Too late, 
he unhappily remembered that he had meant, and 
forgotten, to take that photograph out of the room 
before he brought Harkless in. Now he would have 
to leave it; and Helen Sherwood was not the sort 
of girl, even in a flat presentment, to be continually 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 359 

thrown in the face of a man who had lost her. And 
it always went hard, Tom reflected, with men who 
stretched vain hands to Helen, only to lose her. 
But there was one, he thought, whose outstretched 
hands might not prove so vain. Why couldn’t 
she have cared for John Harkless.^^ Deuce take the 
girl, did she want to marry an emperorHe looked 
at Harkless, and pitied him with an almost tearful 
compassion. A feverish color dwelt in the con¬ 
valescent’s cheek; the apathy that had dulled his 
eyes was there no longer; instead, they burned 
with a steady fire. The image returned his unwaver¬ 
ing gaze with inscrutable kindness. 

“You heard that Pickle shot himself, didn’t you?” 
Meredith asked. There was no answer; John did 
not hear him. 

“Do you know that poor Jerry Haines killed 
himself, last IMarch?” Tom said sharply. 

There was only silence in the room. Meredith 
got up and rattled some tongs in the empty fire 
place, but the other did not move or notice him 
in any way. 

Meredith set the tongs down, and went quietly 
out of the room, leaving his friend to that mys¬ 
terious interview. 


3G0 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


he came back, after a remorseful cigarette 
111 the yard, Harkless was still sitting, motionless, 
looking up at tlie photograph above the mantel- 
t'iece. 


They drove abroad every day, at first in the 
victoria, and, as Harkless’s strength began to come 
back, in a knock-about cart of Tom’s, a light trail 
of blue smoke floating back wherever the two friends 
passed. And though the country editor grew 
stronger in the pleasant, open city, Meredith felt 
that his apathy and listlessness only deepened, and 
he suspected that, in Harkless’s own room, where 
the photograph reigned, the languor departed for 
the time, making way for a destructive fire. Judge 
Briscoe, paying a second visit to Rouen, told Tom, 
in an aside, that their friend did not seem to be 
the same man. He was altered and aged beyond 
belief, the old gentleman whispered sadly. 

Meredith decided that his guest needed enlivening 
—something to take him out of himself; he must 
be stirred up to rub against people once more. 
And therefore, one night he made a little company 
for him: two or three apparently betrothed very 
young couples, for whom it was rather dull, after 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 361 

they had looked their fill of Harkless (it appeared 
that every one was curious to see him); and three 
or four married young couples, for whom the enter¬ 
tainment seemed rather diverting in an absent- 
minded way (they had the air of remembering that 
they had forgotten the baby); and three or four 
bachelors, who seemed contented in any place 
where they were allowed to smoke; and one widower, 
whose manner indicated that any occasion whatever 
was gay enough for him; and four or five young 
women, who (Meredith explained to John) were 
of their host’s age, and had been “left over” out of 
the set he grew up with; and for these the modest 
party took on a hilarious and chipper character. 
“It is these girls that have let the men go by because 
they didn’t see any good enough; they’re the jolly 
souls!” the one widower remarked, confidentially. 
“They’ve been at it a long while, and they know 
how, and they’re light-hearted as robins. They 
have more fun than people who have responsibilities.” 

All of these lively demoiselles fluttered about 
Harkless with commiserative pleasantries, and, in 
spite of his protestations, made him recline in the 
biggest and deepest chair on the porch, where they 
surfeited him with kindness and grouped about him 


362 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

with extra cushions and tenderness for a man whe 
had been injured. No one mentioned the fact that 
he had been hurt; it was not spoken of, though they 
wished mightily he would tell them the story they 
had read luridly in the public prints. They were 
very good to him. One of them, in particular, a 
handsome, dark, kind-eyed girl, constituted herself 
at once his cicerone in Rouen gossip and his wait¬ 
ing-maid. She sat by him, and saw that his needs 
(and his not-needs, too) were supplied and over¬ 
supplied; she could not let him move, and antici¬ 
pated his least wish, though he was now amply 
able to help himself; and she fanned him as if he 
were a dying consumptive. 

They sat on Meredith’s big porch in the late 
twilight and ate a substantial refection, and when 
this was finished, a buzz of nonsense rose from all 
quarters, except the remote corners where the 
youthful affianced ones had defensively stationed 
themselves behind a rampart of plants. They, 
having eaten, had naught to do, and were only 
waiting a decent hour for departure. Laughing 
voices passed up and down the street, and mingled 
with the rhythmic plashing of Meredith’s fountain, 
and, beyond the shrubberies and fence, one caught 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 363 

glimpses of the light dresses of women moving 
to and fro, and of people sitting bareheaded on 
neighboring lawns to enjoy the twilight. Now and 
then would pass, with pipe and dog, the beflanneled 
figure of an undergraduate, home for vacation, or 
a trio of youths in knickerbockers, or a band of 
young girls, or both trio and band together; and 
from a cross street, near by, came the calls and 
laughter of romping children and the pulsating 
whirr of a lawn-mower. This sound Harkless re¬ 
marked as a ceaseless accompaniment to life in 
Rouen; even in the middle of the night there was 
always some unfortunate, cutting grass. 

When the daylight was all gone, and the stars 
had crept out, strolling negroes patrolled the side¬ 
walks, thrumming mandolins and guitars, and others 
came and went, singing, making the night Venetian. 
The untrained, joyous voices, chording eerily in 
their sweet, racial minors, came on the air, some¬ 
times from far away. But there swung out a chorus 
from fresh, Aryan throats, in the house south of 
Meredith’s: 

‘Where, oh where, are the grave old Seniors? 

Safe, now, in the wide, wide world!” 


‘‘Doesn’t that thrill you, boy?” saicy Meredith, 


364 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


joining the group about Harkless’s chair. “Those 
fellows are Sophomores, class of heaven knows 
what. ArenH you feeling a fossil, Father Abraham?” 

A banjo chattered on the lawn to the north, and 
soon a mixed chorus of girls and boys sang from 
there: 

‘*0, *Arriet, I’m waiting, waiting alone out ’ere.” 

Then a piano across the street sounded the dearth¬ 
ful harmonies of Chopin’s Funeral March. 

“You may take your choice,” remarked Mere¬ 
dith, flicking a spark over the rail in the ash of his 
cigar, “Chopping or Chevalier.” 

“Chopin, my friend,” said the lady who had at¬ 
tached herself to Harkless. She tapped Tom’s 
shoulder with her fan and smiled, graciously cor¬ 
rective. 

“Thank you. Miss Hinsdale,” he answered, grate¬ 
fully. “And as I, perhaps, had better say, since 
otherwise there might be a pause and I am the host, 
we have a wide selection. In addition to what is 
provided at present, I predict that within the 
next ten minutes a talented girl who lives two doors 
south will favor us with the Pilgrims’ Chorus, 
piano arrangement, break down in the middle, and 
drift into ‘Rastus on Parade,’ while a double quar« 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 365 


tette of middle-aged colored gentlemen under our 
Jim will make choral offering in our own back 
yard.” 

“My dear Tom,” exclaimed Miss Hinsdale, “you 
forget Wetherford Swift!” 

“I could stand it all,” put forth the widower, “if 
it were not for Wetherford Swift.” 

“When is Miss Sherwood coming home?” asked 
one of the ladies. “Why does she stay away and 
leave him to his sufferings?” 

“Us to his sufferings,” substituted a bachelor. 
“He is just beginning; listen.” 

Through aU the other sounds of music, there 
penetrated from an unseen source, a sawish, 
scraped, vibration of catgut, pathetic, insistent, 
painstaking, and painful beyond belief. 

“He is in a terrible way to-night,” said the 
widower. 

Miss Hinsdale laughed. “Worse every night. 
The violinist is young Wetherford Swift,” she ex¬ 
plained to Harkless. “He is very much in love, 
cind it doesn’t agree with him. He used to be such 
a pleasant boy, but last winter he went quite mad 
over Helen Sherwood, Mr. Meredith’s cousin, our 
beauty, you know—I am so sorry she isn’t here; 


366 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


you’d be interested in meeting her, I’m sure—and 
he took up the violin.” 

“It is said that his family took up chloroform at 
the same time,” said the widower. 

“His music is a barometer,” continued the lady, 
“and by it the neighborhood nightly observer 
whether Miss Sherwood has been nice to him oi 
not.” 

“It is always exceedingly plaintive,” explained 
another. 

“Except once,” rejoined Miss Hinsdale. “He 
played jigs when she came home from somewhere 
or other, in June.” 

“It was Tosti’s ‘Let Me Die,’ the very next 
evening,” remarked the widower. 

“Ah,” said one of the bachelors, “but his joy was 
sadder for us than his misery. Hear him now.” 

“I think he means it for ‘What’s this dull town 
to me,’ ” observed another, with some rancor. “I 
would willingly make the town suiOficiently exciting 
for him-” 

“If there were not an ordinance against the hurl¬ 
ing of missiles,” finished the widower. 

The piano executing the funeral march ceased 
to execute, discomfited by the persistent and over- 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 367 


powering violin; the banjo and the coster-songs 
were given over; even the collegians’ music was 
defeated; and the neighborhood was forced to listen 
to the dauntless fiddle, but not without protest, 
for there came an indignant, spoken chorus from 
the quarter whence the college songs had issued: 
‘‘Ya-a-ay! Wetherford, put it away! She'll come 
back!” The violin played on. 

‘‘We all know each other here, you see, Mr. 
Harkless,” Miss Hinsdale smiled benignantly. 

“They didn’t bother Mr. Wetherford Swift,” said 
the widower. “Not that time. Do you hear him.^ 
—‘Could ye come back to me, Douglas’?” 

“Oh, but it isn’t absence that is killing him and 
his friends,” cried one of the young women. “It 
is Brainard Macauley.” 

“That is a mistake,” said Tom Meredith, as 
easily as he could. “There goes Jim’s double- 
quartette. Listen, and you will hear them try 
to-” 

But the lady who had mentioned Brainard 
Macauley cried indignantly: “You try to change 
the subject the moment it threatens to be interest¬ 
ing. They were together everywhere until the day 
she went away; they danced and ‘sat out’ together 



S68 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


through the whole of one country-club party; they 
drove every afternoon; they took long walks, and 
he was at the Sherwoods’ every evening of her 
last week in town. ‘That is a mistake!’ ” 

“I’m afraid it looks rather bleak for Wetherford,” 
said the widower. “I went up to the ‘Journal’ 
office on business, one day, and there sat Miss 
Sherwood in Macauley’s inner temple, chatting with 
a reporter, while Brainard finished some work.” 

“Helen is eccentric,” said the former speaker, 
“but she’s not quite that eccentric, unless they were 
engaged. It is well understood that they will 
announce it in the fall.” 

Miss Hinsdale kindly explained to Harkless that 
Brainard Macauley was the editor of the “Rouen 
Morning Journal”—“a very distinguished young 
man, not over twenty-eight, and perfectly wonder¬ 
ful.” Already a power to be accounted with in 
national politics, he was “really a tremendous suc¬ 
cess,” and sure to go far; “one of those delicate- 
looking men, who are yet so strong you know they 
won’t let the lightning hurt you.” It really looked 
as if Helen Sherwood (whom Harkless really ought 
to meet) had actually been caught in the toils at 
last, those toils wherein so many luckless youths 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 369 
had lain enmeshed for her sake. He must meet 
Mr. Macauley, too, the most interesting man in 
Rouen. After her little portrait of him, didn’t Mr. 
Harkless agree that it looked really pretty dull 
for Miss Sherwood’s other lovers.^ 

Mr. Harkless smiled, and agreed that it did in¬ 
deed. She felt a thrill of compassion for him, and 
her subsequent description of the pathos of his 
smile was luminous. She said it was natural that 
a man who had been through so much suffering 
from those horrible “White-Cappers” should have 
a smile that struck into your heart like a knife. 

Despite all that Meredith could do, and after his 
notorious effort to shift the subject he could do 
very little, the light prattle ran on about Helen 
Sherwood and Brainard Macauley. Tom abused 
himself for his wild notion of cheering his visitor 
with these people who had no talk, and who, if 
they drifted out of commonplace froth, had no 
medium to float them unless they sailed the currents 
of local personality, and he mentally upbraided 
them for a set of gossiping ninnies. They conducted 
a conversation (if it could be dignified by a name) 
of which no stranger could possibly partake, and 
ivhich, by a hideous coincidence, was making his 


370 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


friend writhe, figuratively speaking, for Harkless sat 
like a fixed shadow. He uttered scarcely a word 
the whole evening, though Meredith knew that 
his guests would talk about him enthusiastically, 
the next day, none the less. The journalist’s silence 
was enforced by the topics; but what expression 
and manner the light allowed them to see 
friendly and receptive, as though he listened to 
brilliant suggestions. He had a nice courtesy, and 
Miss Hinsdale felt continually that she was cleverer 
than usual this evening, and no one took his silence 
to be churlish, though they all innocently wondered 
why he did not talk more; however, it was prob¬ 
able that a man who had been so interestingly and 
terribly shot would be rather silent for a time 
afterward. 

That night, when Harkless had gone to bed 
Meredith sat late by his own window calling him¬ 
self names. He became aware of a rhomboidal 
patch of yellow light on a wall of foliage without, 
and saw that it came from his friend’s window. 
After dubious consideration, he knocked softly on 
the door. 

“Come.” 

He went in. Harkless was in bed, and laughed 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 371 

faintly as Meredith entered. “I—I’m fearing you’ll 
have to let me settle your gas bill, Tom. I’m 
not like I used to be, quite. I find—sinee—since 
that business, I can’t sleep without a light. I 
rather get the—the horrors in the dark.” 

Incoherently, Meredith made a compassionate 
exclamation and turned to go, and, as he left the 
room, his eye fell upon the mantel-piece. The 
position of the photographs had been altered, and 
the picture of the girl who looked straight out at 
you was gone. The mere rim of it was visible 
behind the image of an old gentleman with a sar¬ 
donic mouth. 

An hour later, Tom came back, and spoke through 
the closed door. “Boy, don’t you think you can 
get to sleep now.^^” 

“Yes, Tom. It’s all right. You get to bed. 
Nothing troubles me.” 

Meredith spent the next day in great tribulation 
and perplexity; he felt that something had to be 
done, but what to do he did not know. He still 
believed that a “stirring-up” was what Harkless 
needed—not the species of “stirring-up” that had 
taken place last night, but a diversion which would 
divert. As they sat at dinner, a suggestion came to 


372 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

him and he determined to follow it. He was called 
to the telephone, and a voice strange to his ear 
murmured in a tone of polite deference: “A lady 
wishes to know if Mr. Meredith and his visitor 
intend being present at the country-club this 
evening.” 

He had received the same inquiry from Miss 
Hinsdale on her departure the previous evening, 
and had answered vaguely; hence he now re¬ 
joined: 

“You are quite an expert ventriloquist, but you 
do not deceive me.” 

“I beg your pardon, sir,” creaked the small 
articulation. 

“This is Miss Hinsdale, isn’t it.^” 

“No, sir. The lady wishes to know if you will 
kindly answer her question.” 

“Tell her, yes.” He hung up the receiver, and 
returned to the table. “Some of Clara Hinsdale’s 
play,” he explained. “You made a devastating 
impression on her, boy; you were wise enough not 
to talk any, and she foolishly thought you were as 
interesting as you looked. We’re going out to a 
country-club dance. It’s given for the devotees 
who stay here all summer and swear Rouen is 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 373 

always cool; and nobody dances but me and the 
very young ones. It won’t be so bad; you can 
smoke anywhere, and there are little tables. 
We’ll go.” 

“Thank you, Tom, you’re so good to think of it, 
but-” 

“But what?” 

“Would you mind going alone? I find it very 
pleasant sitting on your veranda, or I’ll get a 
book.” 

“Very well, if you don’t want to go, I don’t. 
I haven’t had a dance for three months and I’m 
still addicted to it. But of course-” 

“I think I’d like to go.” Harkless acquiesced at 
once, with a cheerful voice and a lifeless eye, and 
the good Tom felt unaccountably mean in per¬ 
sisting. 

They drove out into the country through mists 
like lakes, and found themselves part of a pro¬ 
cession of twinkling carriage-lights, and cigar sparks 
shining above open vehicles, winding along the 
levels like a canoe fete on the water. In the en¬ 
trance hall of the club-house they encountered Miss 
Hinsdale, very handsome, large, and dark, elabo¬ 
rately beaming and bending toward them warmly. 



374 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


“Who do you think is here?” she said. 
“Gomez?” ventured Meredith. 

“Helen Sherwood!” she cried. “Go and pre 
sent Mr. Harkless before Brainard Macauley tako 
her away to some comer.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


PRETTY MARQUISE 

T he two friends walked through a sort of 
opera-bouffe to find her; music playing, a 
swaying crowd, bright lights, bright eyes, 
pretty women, a glimpse of dancers footing it over 
a polished floor in a room beyond—a hundred 
colors flashing and changing, as the groups shifted, 
before the eye could take in the composition of the 
picture. A sudden thrill of exhilaration rioted in 
John’s pulses, and he trembled like a child before 
the gay disclosure of a Christmas tree. Meredith 
swore to himself that he would not have known 
him for the man of five minutes agone. Two small, 
bright red spots glowed in his cheeks; he held 
himself erect with head thrown back and shoulders 
squared, and the idolizing Tom thought he looked 
as a king ought to look at the acme of power and 
dominion. Miss Hinsdale’s word in the hallway 
was the genius’s touch: a bent, gray man of years 

—a word—and behold the Great John Harkless, 
375 


376 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


the youth of elder days ripened to his prime of 
wisdom and strength! People made way for them 
and whispered as they passed. It had been years 
since John Harkless had been in the midst of a 
crowd of butterfly people; everything seemed unreal, 
or like a ball in a play; presently the curtain would 
fall and close the lights and laughter from his view,, 
leaving only the echo of music. It was like a kaleido¬ 
scope for color: the bouquets of crimson or white or 
pink or purple; the profusion of pretty dresses, the 
brilliant, tender fabrics, and the handsome, fore¬ 
shortened faces thrown back over white shoulders 
in laughter; glossy raven hair and fair tresses mov¬ 
ing in quick salutations; and the whole gay shimmer 
of festal tints and rich artificialities set off against 
the brave green of out-doors, for the walls were 
solidly adorned with forest branches, with, here and 
there amongst them, a blood-red droop of beech 
leaves, stabbed in autumn’s first skirmish with 
summer. The night was cool, and the air full of 
flower smells, while harp, violin, and ’cello sent a 
waltz-throb through it all. 

They looked rapidly through several rooms and 
failed to find her mdoors, and they went outside, 
not exchanging a word, and though Harkless was a 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 377 

little lame, Tom barely kept up with his long stride. 
On the verandas there were fairy lamps and colored 
incandescents over little tables, where people sat 
chatting. She was not there. Beyond was a terrace, 
where a myriad of Oriental lanterns outlined them¬ 
selves clearly in fantastically shaped planes of scar¬ 
let and orange and green against the blue darkness. 
Many couples and groups were scattered over the 
terrace, and the yoimg men paused on the steps, 
looking swiftly from group to group. She was not 
there. 

“We haven’t looked in the dancing-room,” said 
Tom, looking at his companion rather sorrowfully, 
John turned quickly and they reentered the house. 

He had parted from her in the blaclmess of storm 
with only the flicker of lightning to show her to him, 
but it was in a blaze of lights that he saw her again. 
The dance was just ended, and she stood in a wide 
doorway, half surrounded by pretty girls and young 
men, who were greeting her. He had one full look 
at her. She was leaning to them all, her arms full 
or flowers, and she seemed the radiant centre of 
all the light and gaiety of the place. Even Mere¬ 
dith stopped short and exclaimed upon her; for one 
never got used to her; and he remembered that 


378 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

whenever he saw her after absence the sense of hei 
beauty rushed over him anew. And he believed the 
feeling on this occasion was keener than ever before, 
for she was prettier than he had ever seen her. 

“No wonder!” he cried; but Harkless did not 
understand. As they pressed forward, Meredith 
perceived that they were only two more radii of a 
circle of youths, sprung from every direction as the 
waltz ended, bearing down upon the common focus 
to secure the next dance. Harkless saw nothing 
but that she stood there before him. He feared a 
little that every one might notice how he was trem¬ 
bling, and he was glad of the many voices that kept 
them from hearing his heart knock against his ribs. 
She saw him comtig toward her, and nodded to him 
pleasantly, in just the fashion in which she was bow¬ 
ing to half a dozen others, and at that a pang of hot 
pain went through him like an arrow—an arrow' 
poisoned with cordial, casual friendliness. 

She extended her hand to him and gave him a 
smile that chilled him—it was so conventionally 
courteous and poised so nicely in the manner of 
society. He went hot and cold fast enough then, 
for not less pleasantly in that manner did she 
exclaim: “I am very glad to see you, Mr. Hark^e^ 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA S7§ 

so extremely glad! And so delighted to find you 
looking strong again! Do tell me about all our 
friends in Plattville. I should like to have a little 
chat with you some time. So good of you to find 
me in this melee.” 

And with that she turned from the poor fellow to 
]\Ieredith. “How do you do, Cousin Tom.? I’ve 
saved the next dance for you.” Then she distri¬ 
buted words here and there and everywhere, amongst 
the circle about her—pretty Marquise with a 
vengeance! “No, Mr. Swift, I shall not make a 
card; you must come at the beginning of a dance 
if you want one. I cannot promise the next; it is 
quite impossible. No, I did not go as far north as 
Mackinac. How do you do, Mr. Burlingame?— 
Yes, quite an age;—no, not the next, I am afraid; 
nor the next;—I’m not keeping a card. Good even¬ 
ing, Mr. Baird. No, not the next. Oh, thank you, 
IVIiss Hinsdale!—No, Mr. Swift, it is quite impos¬ 
sible—I’m so sorry. Cousin, the music is com¬ 
mencing; this is ours.” 

As she took Meredith’s arm, she handed her flow¬ 
ers to a gentleman beside her with the slightest 
glance at the recipient; and the gesture and look 
made her partner heartsick for his friend; it was so 


380 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


easy and natural and with the air of habit, and had 
so much of the manner with which a woman hands 
things to a man who partakes of her inner confi* 
dences. Tom knew that Harkless divined the 
gesture, as well as the identity of the gentleman. 
They started away, but she paused, and turned to 
the latter. “Mr. Macauley, you must meet Mr. 
Harkless. We leave him in your care, and you must 
see that he meets all the pretty girls—you are used 
to being nice to distinguished strangers, you know. 

Tom put his arm about her, and whirled her away 
and Harkless felt as if a soft hand had dealt him 
blow after blow in the face. Was this lady of little 
baffling forms and small cold graces the girl who had 
been his kind comrade, the girl who stood with him 
by the blue tent-pole, she who had run to him to 
save his life, she who walked at his side along the 
pike? The contrast of these homely scenes made 
him laugh grimly. Was this she who had wept 
before him—was it she who had been redolent of 
kindness so fragrantly natural and true—was it she 
who said she “loved all these people very much, in 
spite of having known them only two days”? 

He cried out upon himself for a fool. What was 
he in her eyes but a man who had needed to be told 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 381 

that she did not love him! Had he not better—and 
more courteously to her—have avoided the meeting 
which was necessarily an embarrassment to her? 
But no; he must rush like a Mohawk till he found 
her and forced her to rebuff him, to veil her kind¬ 
ness in little manners, to remind him that he put 
himself in the character of a rejected importunate. 
She had punished him enough, perhaps a little too 
cruelly enough, in leaving him with the man to 
whom she handed bouquets as a matter of course. 
And this man was one whose success had long been 
a trumpet at his ear, blaring loudly of his own failure 
in the same career. 

It had been several years since he first heard of 
the young editor of the Rouen “Journal,” and nowa¬ 
days almost everybody knew about Brainard 
Macauley. Outwardly, he was of no unusual type: 
an American of affairs; slight, easy, yet alert; 
relaxed, yet sharp; neat, regular, strong; a quizzical 
eye, a business chin, an ambitious head with soft, 
straight hair outlining a square brow; and though 
he was “of a type,” he was not commonplace, and 
one knew at once that he would make a rattling 
fight to arrive where he was going. 

It appeared that he had heard of Harkless, a» 


382 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

well as the Carlow editor of him. They had a few 
moments of shop, and he talked to Harkless as a 
brother craftsman, without the offense of gracious¬ 
ness, and spoke of his pleasure in the meeting and 
of his relief at Harkless’s recovery, for, aside from 
the mere human feeling, the party needed him in 
Carlow—even if he did not always prove himself 
‘‘quite a vehement partisan.” Macauley laughed. 
“But I’m not doing my duty,” he said presently; 
“I was to present you to the pretty ones only, I 
believe. Will you designate your preferred fashion 
of beauty? We serve all styles.” 

“Thank you,” the other answered, hurriedly. “I 
met a number last night—quite a number, indeed.” 
He had seen them only in dim lights, however, and 
except Miss Hinsdale and the widower, had not the 
faintest recognition of any of them, and he cut them 
all, except those two, one after the other, before the 
evening was over; and this was a strange thing for 
a politician to do; but he did it with such an inno¬ 
cent eye that they remembered the dark porch and 
forgave him. 

“Shall we watch the dancing, then?” asked 
Macauley. Harkless was already watching part 
of it. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 383 

‘Tf you will. I have not seen this sort for more 
than five years.” 

‘Tt is always a treat, I think, and a constant proof 
that the older school of English caricaturists didn’t 
overdraw.” 

“Yes; one realizes they couldn’t.” 

Harkless remembered Tom Meredith’s fine accom¬ 
plishment of dancing; he had been the most famous 
dancer of college days, and it was in the dancer 
that John best saw his old friend again as he had 
known him, the light lad of the active toe. Other 
couples flickered about the one John watched, 
couples that plodded, couples that bobbed, couples 
that galloped, couples that slid, but the cousins alone 
passed across the glistening reflections as lightly as 
October leaves blown over the forest floor. In the 
midst of people who danced with fixed, glassy eyes, 
or who frowned with determination to do their duty 
or to die, and seemed to expect the latter, or who 
were pale with the apprehension of collision, or who 
made visible their anxiety to breathe through the 
nose and look pleased at the same time, these two 
floated and smiled easily upon life. Three or four 
steep steps made the portly and cigarette-smoking 
Meredith pant like an old man, but a dance was a 


384 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


cooling draught to him. As for the little Marquise 
—when she danced, she danced away with all those 
luckless hearts that were not hers already. The 
orchestra launched the jubilant measures of the 
deux-temps with a torrent of vivacity, and the girl’s 
rhythmic flight answered like a sail taking the 
breeze. 

There was one heart she had long since wor 
which answered her every movement. Flushed, 
rapturous, eyes sparkling, cheeks aglow, the smaK 
head weaving through the throng like a golden 
shuttle—ah, did she know how adorable she was! 
Was Tom right: is it the attainable unattain¬ 
able to one man and given to some other that 
leaves a deeper mark upon him than success? 
At all events the unattainable was now like a 
hot sting in the heart, but yet a sting more 
precious than a balm. The voice of Brainard 
Macauley broke in: 

“A white brow and a long lash, a flushing cheek 
and a soft eye, a voice that laughs and breaks and 
ripples in the middle of a word, a girl you could put 
in your hat, Mr. Harkless—and there you have a 
strong man prone! But I congratulate you on the 
manner your subordinates operate the ‘Herald' 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 385 

during your absence. I understand you are making 
it a daily.” 

Macauley was staring at him quizzically, and 
Harkless, puzzled, but without resentment of the 
other’s whimsey, could only decide that the editor 
of the Rouen “Journal” was an exceedingly odd 
young man. All at once he found Meredith and 
the girl herself beside him; they had stopped before 
the dance was finished. He had the impulse to 
guard himself from new blows as a boy throws up 
his elbow to ward a buffet, and, although he could 
not ward with his elbow, for his heart was on his 
fleeve—where he began to believe that Macauley 
had seen it—^he remembered that he could smile 
with as much intentional mechanism as any worn- 
out rounder of afternoons. He stepped aside for 
her, and she saw what she had known but had not 
seen before, for the thickness of the crowd, and this 
was that he limped and leaned upon his stick. 

“Do let me thank you,” he said, with a louder 
echo of her manner of greeting him, a little earlier. 
“It has been such a pleasure to watch you dance. 
It is really charming to meet you here. If I return 
to Plattville I shall surely remember to tell Miss 
Briscoe.’^ 


386 THE GENTLEJVIAN FROM INDIANA 


At this she surprised him with a sudden, clear look 
in the eyes, so reproachful, so deep, so sad, that he 
started. She took her flowers from Macauley, who 
had the air of understanding the significance of such 
ceremonies very well, and saying, “Shan’t we all 
go out on the terrace.^” placed her arm in Hark- 
iess’s, and conducted him (and not the others) to the 
most secluded corner of the terrace, a nook illu¬ 
mined by one Japanese lantern; to which spot 
it was his belief that he led her. She sank into 
a chair, with the look of the girl who had stood by 
the blue tent-pole. He could only stare at her, 
amazed by her abrupt change to this dazzling, if re¬ 
proachful, kindness, confused by his good fortune. 

“ 'If you go back to Plattville!’ ” she said in a low 
voice. “What do you mean.^” 

“I don’t know. I’ve been dull lately, and I 
thought I might go somewhere else.” Caught in a 
witchery no lack of possession could dispel, and 
which the prospect of loss made only stronger while 
it lasted, he took little thought of what he said; little 
thought of anything but of the gladness it was to be 
with her again. 

"‘Somewhere else.^’ Where?” 


"Anywhere. 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 387 

“Have you no sense of responsibility? What is 
to become of your paper?” 

‘*The ‘Herald’? Oh, it will potter along, I think.” 

“But what has become of it in your absence, al¬ 
ready? Has it not deteriorated very much?” 

“No,” he said; “it’s better than it ever was be¬ 
fore.” 

^'Whatr she cried, with a little gasp. 

“You’re so astounded at my modesty?” 

“But please tell me what you mean,^’ she said 
quickly. “What happened to it?” 

“Isn’t the ‘Herald’ rather a dull subject? I’ll 
tell you how well Judge Briscoe looked when he 
came to see me; or, rather, tell me of your summer 
in the north.” 

“No,” she answered earnestly. “Don’t you re¬ 
member my telling you that I am interested in news¬ 
paper work?” 

“I have even heard so from others,” he said, with 
an instant of dryness. 

“Please tell me about the ‘Herald’?” 

“It is very simple. Your friend, Mr. Fisbee, 
found a substitute, a relative six feet high with his 
coat off, a traction engine for energy and a limited 
mail for speed. He writes me letters on a type- 


388 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


writer suffering from an impediment in its speech; 
and in brief, he is an enterprising idiot with a mania 
for work-baskets.” 

Her face was in the shadow. 

“You say the—idiot—is enterprising?” she in¬ 
quired. 

“Far more enterprising and far less idiot than I. 
They are looking for oil down there, and when he 
came he knew less about oil than a kindergarten 
babe, and spoke of ‘boring for kerosene’ in his first 
letter to me; but he knows it all now, and writes 
long and convincing geological arguments. If a 
well comes in, he is prepared to get out an extra! 
Perhaps you may understand what that means in 
Plattville, with the ‘Herald’s’ numerous forces. I 
owe him everything, even the shares in the oil com¬ 
pany, which he has persuaded me to take. And he 
is going to dare to make the ‘Herald’ a daily. Do 
you remember asking me why I had never done 
that? It seemed rather a venture to try to compete 
with the Rouen papers in offering State and for¬ 
eign news, but this young Gulliver has tacked onto 
the Associated Press, and means to print a quarto 
—that’s eight pages, you know—once a week, 
Saturday, and a double sheet, four pages, on othei 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 389 


mornings. The daily venture begins next Mon¬ 
day.’^ 

“Will it succeed?’’ 

“Oh, no!” he laughed. 

“You think not?” Her interest in this dull busi¬ 
ness struck him as astonishing, and yet in character 
with her as he had known her in Plattville. Then 
he wondered unhappily if she thought that talking 
of the “Herald” and learning things about the 
working of a country newspaper would help her to 
understand Brainard Macauley. 

“Why have you let him go on with it?” she asked. 
“I suppose you have encouraged him?” 

“Oh, yes, I encouraged him. The creature’s 
recklessness fascinated me. A dare-devil like that 
is always charming.’” 

“You think there is no chance for the creature’s 
succeeding with the daily?” 

“None,” he replied indifferently. 

“You mentioned work-baskets, I think?” 

He laughed again. “I believe him to be the 
original wooden-nutmeg man. Once a week he pro¬ 
duces a ‘Woman’s Page,’ wherein he presents to 
the Carlow female public three methods for making 
currant jelly, three receipts for the concoction of 


390 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

salads, and directs the ladies how to manufacture a 
pretty work-basket out of odd scraps in twenty min¬ 
utes. The astonishing part of it is that he has not 
yet been mobbed by the women who have followed 
his directions.” 

‘‘So you think the daily is a mistake and that your 
enterprising idiot should be mobbed? Why?” She 
seemed to be taking him very seriously. 

“I think he may be—for his ‘Woman’s Page.’ ” 

“It is all wrong, you think?” 

“WTiat could a Yankee six-footer cousin of old 
Fisbee’s know about currant jelly and work-bask¬ 
ets?” 

“You know about currant jelly and work-baskets 
yourself?” 

“Heaven defend the right, I do not!” 

“You are sure he is six feet?” 

“You should see his signature; that leaves no 
doubt. And, also, his ability denotes his stature.” 

“You believe that ability is in proportion to 
height, do you not?” There was a dangerous lur¬ 
ing in her tone. 

His memory recalled to him that he was treading 
on undermined ground, so he hastened to say: “In 
inverse proportion.” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 391 


“Then your substitute is a failure. I see,” she 
said, slowly. 

What muffled illumination there was in their nook 
fell upon his face; her back was toward it, so that she 
was only an outline to him, and he would have been 
startled and touched to the quick, could he have 
known that her lip quivered and her eyes filled with 
tears as she spoke the last words. He was happy 
as he had not been since his short June day; it was 
enough to be with her again. Nothing, not even 
Brainard Macauley, could dull his delight. And, 
besides, for a few minutes he had forgotten Brainard 
Macauley. What more could man ask than to sit in 
the gloom with her, to know that he was near her 
again for a little while, and to talk about anything-^ 
if he talked at all.^^ Nonsense and i.dle exaggeration 
about young Fisbee would do as well as another 
thing. 

“The young gentleman is an exception,” he re¬ 
turned. “I told you I owed everything to him; my 
gratitude will not allow me to admit that his ability 
is less than his stature. He suggested my purchase 
of a quantity of IMr. Watts’s oil stock when it was 
knocked flat on its back by two wells turning out 
dry; but if Mr. Watts’s third well comes in, and 


m THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

young Eisbee has convinced me that it will, and if 
my Midas’s extra booms the stock and the boom 
develops, I shall oppose the income tax. Poor old 
Plattville will be full of strangers and speculators, 
and the ‘Herald’ will advocate vast improvements 
to impress the investor’s eye. Stagnation and pict¬ 
uresqueness will flee together; it is the history of 
the Indiana town. Already the ‘Herald’ is clamor¬ 
ing with Schofields’ Henry—you remember the 
bell-ringer.^—for Main Street to be asphalted. It 
will all come. The only trouble with young Fisbee 
is that he has too much ability.” 

“And yet the daily will not succeed.^” 

“No. That’s too big a jump, unless my young 
man’s expressions on the tariff command a wide sale 
amongst curio-hunters.” 

“Then he is quite a fool about political matters?” 

“Far from it; he is highly ingenious. His edi¬ 
torials are often the subtlest cups of flattery I ever 
sipped, many of them showing assiduous study of 
old files to master the method and notions of his 
eagle-eyed predecessor. But the tariff seems to 
have got him. He is a very masculine person, ex¬ 
cept for this one feminine quality, for, if I may say it 
without ungallantry, there is a legend that no 


THE GEJN l\LJt.i\iAN FROM INDIANA 393 


woman has ever understood the tariff. Young Fis- 
bee must be an extremely travelled person, because 
the custom-house people have made an impression 
upon him which no few encounters with them could 
explain, and he conceives the tariff to be a law 
which discommodes a lady who has been purchasiug 
gloves in Paris. He thinks smuggling the great 
evil of the present tariff system; it is such a tempta¬ 
tion, so insidious a break-down of moral fibre. His 
views must edffy Carlow.” 

She gave a quick, stifled cry. “Oh! there isn’t 
a word of truth in what you say! Not a word' I 
did not think you could be so cruel!” 

He bent forward, peering at her in astonishment. 

“Cruel!” 

“You know it is a hateful distortion—^an exag¬ 
geration!” she exclaimed passionately. “No man 
hving could have so little sense as you say he has. 
The tariff is perfectly plain to any child. When 
you were in Plattville you weren’t like this—I didn’t 
know you were unkind!” 

“I—I don’t understand, please-” 

“Miss Hinsdale has been talking—raving—^to me 
about you! You may not know it—though I sup¬ 
pose you do—but you made a conquest last night. 



S94 THE GENTLEilAN FROM INDIANA 


It seems a little hard on the poor young man who is 
at work for you in Plattville, doing his best for you, 
plodding on through the hot days, and doing all he 
knows how, while you sit listening to music in the 
evenings with Clara Hinsdale, and make a mock of 
his work and his trying to please you-” 

“But I didn’t mention him to Miss Hinsdale. In 
fact, I didn’t mention anything to Miss Hinsdale. 
What have I done.^ The young man is making his 
living by his work—and my living, too, for that 
matter. It only seems to me that his tariff edi¬ 
torials are rather humorous.” 

She laughed suddenly—ringingly. “Of course 
they are! How should I know.^ Immensely hu¬ 
morous ! And the good creature knows nothing 
beyond smuggling and the custom-house and chalk 
marks? Why, even I —^ha, ha, ha!—even I —should 
have loiown better than that. What a little fool your 
enterprising idiot must be!—with his work-baskets 
and currant jelly and his trying to make the ‘Her¬ 
ald’ a daily!—It will be a ludicrous failure, of course. 
No doubt he thought he was being quite wise, and 
was pleased over his tariff editorials—his funny, 
funny editorials—his best—to please you! Ha, ha, 
ha! How immensely funny!” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 395 


“Do you know him?” he asked abruptly. 

“I have not the honor of the gentleman’s ac¬ 
quaintance. Ah,” she rejoined bitterly, “I see what 
you mean; it is the old accusation, is it? I am a 
woman, and I ‘sound the personal note.’ I could 
not resent a cruelty for the sake of a man I do not 
know. But let it go. My resentment is personal, 
after all, since it is against a man I do know— 
your* 

He leaned toward her because he could not help 
it. “I’d rather have resentment from you than 
nothing.” 

“Then I will give you nothing,” she answered 
quickly. 

“You flout me!” he cried. “That is better than 
resentment.” 

“I hate you most, I think,” she said with a tremu¬ 
lousness he did not perceive, “when you say you do 
not care to go back to Plattville.” 

“Did I say it?” 

“It is in every word, and it is true; you don’t care 
to go back there.” 

“Yes, it is true; I don’t.” 

“You want to leave the place where you do good; 
to leave those people who love you, who were ready 


S96 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


to die to avenge yonr hurt!” she exclaimed vehe¬ 
mently. “Oh, I say that is shameful!” 

“Yes, I know,” he returned gravely. “I am 
ashamed.” 

“Don’t say that!” she cried. “Don’t say you 
are ashamed of it. Do you suppose I do not under¬ 
stand the dreariness it has been for you.? Don’t you 
know that I see it is a horror to you, that it brings 
back your struggle with those beasts in the dark, 
and revivifies all your suffering, merely to think of 
it.?” Her turns and sudden contradictions left him 
tangled in a maze; he could not follow, but must sit 
helpless to keep pace with her, while the sheer hap¬ 
piness of being with her tingled through his veins. 
She rose and took a step aside, then spoke again: 
“Well, since you want to leave Carlow, you shall; 
since you do not wish to return, you need not.—^Are 
you laughing at me?” She leaned toward him, and 
looked at him steadily, with her face close to his. 
He was not laughing; his eyes shone with a deep 
fire; in that nearness he hardly comprehended what 
she said. “Thank you for not laughing,” she whis¬ 
pered, and leaned back from him. “I suppose you 
think my promises are quite wild, and they are. I 
do not know what I was talking about, or what I 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA S97 

meant, any better than you do. You may under¬ 
stand some day. It is all—I mean that it hurts one 
to hear you say you do not care for Carlow.” She 
turned away. Come.” 

‘‘Where?” 

“It is my turn to conclude the interview. You 
remember, the last time it was you who—” She 
broke off, shuddering, and covered her face with her 
hands. “Ah, that!” she exclaimed. “I did not 
think—I did not mean to speak of that miserable, 
miserable night. And I to be harsh with you for 
not caring to go back to Carlow!” 

“Your harshness,” he laughed. “A waft of 
eider.” 

“We must go,” she said. He did not move, but 
sat staring at her like a thirsty man drinking. 

With an impulsive and pretty gesture she reached 
out her hand to him. Her little, white glove trem¬ 
bled in the night before his eyes, and his heart leaped 
to meet its sudden sweet generosity; his thin fingers 
closed over it as he rose, and then that hand he had 
hkened to a white butterfly lay warm and light and 
quiet in his own. And as they had so often stood 
together in their short day and their two nights of 
the moon, so now again they stood with a serenad- 


398 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

ing silence between them. A plaintive waltz-refrain 
from the house ran through the blue woof of starlit 
air as a sad-colored thread through the tapestry of 
night; they heard the mellow croon of the ’cello and 
the silver plaints of violins, the chiming harp, and the 
triangle bells, all woven into a minor strain of dance- 
music that beat gently upon their ears with such 
suggestion of the past, that, as by some witchcraft 
of hearing, they listened to music made for lovers 
dancing, and lovers listening, a hundred years ago. 

‘T care for only one thing in this world,” he said, 
tremulously. “Have I lost it.^ I didn’t mean to 
ask you, that last night, although you answered. 
Have I no chance? Is it still the same? Do I come 
too late?” 

The butterfly fluttered in his hand and then away. 

She drew back and looked at him a moment. 

“There is one thing you must always under¬ 
stand,” she said gently, “and that is that a woman 
can be gi*ateful. I give you all the gratitude there is 
in me, and I think I have a great deal; it is all yours. 
Will you always remember that?” 

“Gratitude? What can there-” 

“You do not understand now, but some day you 
will. I ask you to remember that my every act and 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 399 


thought which bore reference to you—and there 
have been many—came from the purest gratitude. 
Although you do not see it now, will you promise 
to believe it.^” 

“Yes,” he said simply. 

“For the rest—” She paused. “For the rest— 
I do not love you.” 

He bowed his head and did not lift it. 

“Do you understand.^” she asked. 

“I understand,” he answered, quietly. 

She looked at him long, and then, suddenly, her 
hand to her heart, gave a little, pitying, tender cry 
and moved toward him At this he raised his head 
and smiled sadly. “No; don’t you mind,” he said. 
“It’s all right. I was such a cad the other time I 
needed to be told; I was so entirely silly about it, I 
couldn’t face the others to tell them good-night, and 
I left you out there to go in to them alone. I didn’t 
realize, for my manners were all gone. I’d lived in 
a kind of stupor, I think, for a long time; then being 
with you was like a dream, and the sudden waking 
was too much for me. I’ve been ashamed often, 
since, in thinking of it—and I was well punished for 
not taking you in. I thought only of myself, and 
I behaved like a whining, unbalanced boy. But I 


400 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

had whined from the moment I met you, because I 
was sickly with egoism and loneliness and self-pity. 
I’m keeping you from the dancing. Won’t you let 
me take you back to the house 

A commanding and querulous contralto voice was 
heard behind them, and a dim, majestic figure ap¬ 
peared imder the Japanese lantern. 

‘‘Helen?” 

The girl turned quickly. “Yes, mamma.” 

“May I ask you to return to the club-house for 
supper with me? Your father has been very much 
worried about you. We have all been looking for 
you.” 

“Mamma, this is Mr. Harkless.” 

“How do you do?” The lady murmured this 
much so far under her breath that the words might 
have been mistaken for anything else—most plaus¬ 
ibly, perhaps, for, “Who cares if it is?”—nor further 
did she acknowledge John’s profound inclination. 
Frigidity and complaint of ill-usage made a glamour 
in every fold of her expensive garments; she was 
large and troubled and severe. A second figure 
emerged from behind her and bowed with the suave 
dignity that belonged to Brainard Macauley. “Mr. 
Macauley has asked to sit at our table,” Mrs. Sher- 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 401 

Wood said to Helen. ‘‘May I beg you to come at 
once? Your father is holding places for us.” 

“Certainly,” she answered. “I will follow you 
with Mr. Harkless.” 

“I think Mr. Harkless will excuse you,” said the 
elder lady. “He has an engagement. Mr. Mere¬ 
dith has been looking everywhere for him to take 
Miss Hinsdale out to supper.” 

“Good-night, Miss Sherwood,” said John in a 
cheerful voice. “I thank you for sitting out the 
dance with me.” 

“Good-night,” she said, and gave him her hand. 
“I’m so sorry I shan’t see you again; I am only in 
Rouen for this evening, or I should ask you to come 
to see me, I am leaving to-morrow morning. 
Good-night.—Yes, mamma.” 

The three figures went toward the bright lights 
of the club-house. She was leaning on Macauley’s 
arm and chatting gaily, smiling up at him brightly. 
John watched her till she was lost in the throng on 
the veranda. There, m the lights, where waiters 
were arranging little tables, every one was talking 
and moving about, noisily, good-humored and happy. 
There was a flourish of violins, and then the orches¬ 
tra swung into a rampant march that pranced like 


402 THE GENTLEIHAN FROM INDIANA 


uncurbed cavalry; it stirred the blood of old men 
with militant bugle calls and blast of horns; it might 
have heralded the chariot of a flamboyant war god 
rioting out of sunrise, plumed with youth. Some 
quite young men on the veranda made as if they 
were restive horses champing at the bit and heading 
a procession, and, from a group near by, loud laugh¬ 
ter pealed. 

John Harkless lifted to his face the hand that had 
held hers; there was the faint perfume of her glove. 
He kissed his own hand. Then he put that hand 
and the other to his forehead, and sank into her 
chair. 

‘‘Let me get back,” he said. “Let me get back 
to Plattville, where I belong.” 

Tom Meredith came calling him. “Harkless.^ 
John Harkless.^” 

“Here I am, Tom.” 

“Come along, boy. What on earth are you doing 
out here all alone.^ I thought you were with—I 
thought some people were with you. You’re bored 
to death, I know; but come along and be bored 
some more, because I promised to bring you in for 
supper. Then we’ll go home. They’ve saved a 
place for you by Miss Hinsdale,” 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 403 


‘‘Very well, lad,” answered Harkless, and put his 
hand on the other’s shoulder. “Thank you.” 

The next day he could not leave his bed; his 
wounds were feverish and his weakness had re¬ 
turned. Meredith was shaken with remorse be¬ 
cause he had let him wander around in the damp 
night air with no one to look after him. 


CHAPTER XVn 


Helen’s toast 

J UDGE BRISCOE was sitting out under the 
afternoon sky with his chair tilted back and 
his feet propped against the steps. His coat 
was off, and Minnie sat near at hand sewing a button 
on the garment for him, and she wore that dreamy 
glaze that comes over women’s eyes when they sew 
for other people. 

From the interior of the house rose and fell the 
murmur of a number of voices engaged in a conver¬ 
sation, which, for a time, seemed to consist of de¬ 
jected monosyllables; but presently the judge and 
Minnie heard Helen’s voice, clear, soft, and trem¬ 
bling a little with excitement. She talked only two 
or three minutes, but what she said stirred up a great 
commotion. All the voices burst forth at once in 
ejaculations—almost shouts; but presently they 
were again subdued and still, except for the single 
soft one, which held forth more quietly, but with a 

deeper agitation, than any of the others. 

404 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 405 


“You needn’t try to bamboozle me,” said the 
judge in a covert tone to his daughter, and with a 
glance at the parlor window, whence now issued the 
rumble of Warren Smith’s basso. “I tell you that 
girl would follow John Harkless to Jericho.” 

Minnie shook her head mysteriously, and bit a 
thread with a vague frown. 

“Well, why not.^” asked the judge crossly. 

“Why wouldn’t she have him, then.?” 

“Well, who knows he’s asked her yet?” 

Minnie screamed derisively at the density of man. 
“What made him run off that way, the night he was 
hurt? Why didn’t he come back in the house with 
her?” 

“Pshaw!” 

“Don’t you suppose a woman understands?” 

“Meaning that you know more about it than I 
do, I presume,” grunted the old gentleman. 

“Yes, father,” she replied, smiling benignantly 
upon him. 

“Did she tell you?” he asked abruptly. 

“No, no. I guess the truth is that women don’t 
know more than men so much as they see more; 
they understand more without having to read about 
it.” 


40C THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“That’s the way of it, is it?” he laughed. “Well, 
it don’t make any difference, she’ll have him some 
time.” 

“No, father; it’s only gratitude.” 

“Gratitude!” The judge snorted scornfully. 
“Girls don’t do as much as she’s done for him out 
of gratitude. Look what she’s doing; not only run¬ 
ning the ‘Herald’ for him, but making it a daily, 
and a good daily at that. First time I saw her I 
knew right away she was the smartest girl I ever laid 
eyes on;—I expect she must have got it from her 
mother. Gratitude! Pooh! Look how she’s stud¬ 
ied his interests, and watched like a cat for chances 
for him in everything. Didn’t she get him into 
Eph Watts’s company? She talked to Watts and 
the other fellows, day after day, and drove around 
their leased land with ’em, and studied it up, and 
got on the inside, and made him buy. Now, if they 
strike it—and she’s sure they will, and 7’m sure 
she knows when to have faith in a thing—why, 
they’ll sell out to the Standard, and they can 
all quit work for the rest of their lives if they 
want to; and Harkless gets as much as any 
without lifting a finger, all because he had a little 
money—mighty little, too—laid up in bank and a 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 407 


girl that saw where to put it. She did that for 
him, didn’t she.^” 

“Don’t you see what fun it’s been for her?” re¬ 
turned Minnie. “She’s been having the best time 
she ever had; I never knew any one half so happy.” 

“Yes; she went up and saw him at that party, and 
she knows he’s still thinking about her. I shouldn’t 
be surprised if he asked her then, and that’s what 
makes her so gay.” 

“Well, she couldn’t have said ‘y^s,’ because he 
went back to his bed the next day, and he’s been 
there most of the time since.” 

“Pshaw! He wasn’t over his injuries, and he 
was weak and got malaria.” 

“Well, she couldn’t be so happy while he’s sick, 
if she cared very much about him.” 

“He’s not very sick. She’s happy because she’s 
working for him, and she knows his illness isn’t seri¬ 
ous. He’ll be a well man when she says the word. 
He’s love-sick, that’s what he is; I never saw a man 
so taken down with it in my life.” 

“Then it isn’t malaria?” Minnie said, with a smile 
of some superiority. 

“You’re just like your poor mother,” the old 
gentleman answered, growing rather red. “She 


408 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

never could learn to argue. What I say is that 
Helen cares about him, whether she says she does 
or not, whether she acts like it or not—or 
whether she thinks she does or not,” he added 
irascibly. “Do you know what she’s doing for him 
to-day?” 

“Not exactly.” 

“Well, when they were talking together at that 
party, he said something that made her think he was 
anxious to get away from Plattville—^you’re not to 
repeat this, child; she told me, relying on my dis¬ 
cretion.” 

“Well?” 

“Do you know why she’s got these men to come 
here to-day to meet her—Warren Smith and Landis 
and Horner, and Boswell and young Keating of 
Amo, and Tom Martin and those two fellows from 
Gaines County?” 

“Something about politics, isn’t it?” 

“‘Something about politics!’” he echoed. “I 
should say it is! Wait till it’s done, and this even¬ 
ing I’ll tell you—if you can keep a secret.” 

Minnie set her work-basket on the steps. “Oh, 
I guess I can keep a secret,” she said. “But it won’t 
make any difference.” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 409 


“You mean you’ve said it, and you’ll stick to it 
that it’s gratitude till their wedding day.” 

“She knows he gave her father something to do, 
and helped him in other ways, when no one else 
did.” 

“I know all about that. She reproaches herself 
for having neglected Fisbee while a stranger took 
care of him, and saved him from starving—and 
worse. She’s unreasonable about it; she didn’t 
know he was in want till long after. That’s just like 
Fisbee, to tell her, afterwards. He didn’t tell her 
how low he got; but he hinted at it to her, and I 
guess she understood; I gathered that much from 
him. Of course she’s grateful, but gratefulness 
don’t account for everything.” 

“Yes it does.” 

“Well, I never expected to have the last word 
with a woman.” 

“Well, you needn’t,” said Minnie. 

“I don’t. I never do,” he retorted. She did not 
answer, but hummed a little tune and looked up at 
the tree-tops. 

Warren Smith appeared in the doorway. 
“Judge,” he said, “will you step inside? We need 
you.” 


410 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


Briscoe nodded and rose at once. As he reached 
the door, Minnie said in a piercing whisper: 

“It’s hard to be sure about her, but I’m right; it’s 
gratitude.” 

“There,” he replied, chuckling, “I thought I 
shouldn’t have the last word.” Minnie began to 
sing, and the judge, after standing in the doorway 
till he was again summoned from within, slowly 
retired. 

Briscoe had persisted in his own explanation of 
Helen’s gaiety; nevertheless he did not question his 
daughter’s assumption that the young lady was en¬ 
joying her career in Carlow. She was free as a bird 
to go and come, and her duties and pleasures ran 
together in a happy excitement. Her hands were 
full of work, but she sought and increased new tasks, 
and performed them also. She came to Carlow as 
unused to the soil as was Harkless on his arrival, 
and her educational equipment for the work was far 
less than his; her experience, nothing. But both 
were native to the State; and the genius of the 
American is adaptability, and both were sprung 
from pioneers whose means of life depended on that 
quality. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 411 

There are, here and there, excrescent individuals, 
who, through stock decadence, or their inability to 
comprehend republican conditions, are not assimi^ 
lated by the body of the country; but many of these 
are imports, while some are exports. Our foreign- 
born agitators now and then find themselves re¬ 
moved by the police to institutions of routine, while 
the romantic innocents who set up crests in the face 
of an unimpressionable democracy are apt to be 
lured by their own curious ambitions, or those of 
their women-folk, to spend a great part of their 
time in or about the villas of Albion, thus paid for 
its perfidy; and, although the anarchists and the 
bubble-hunters make a noise, it is enormously out 
of proportion to their number, which is relatively 
very small, and neither the imported nor the ex¬ 
ported article can be taken as characteristic of our 
country. For the American is one who soon fits 
any place, or into any shaped hole in America, where 
you can set him down. It may be that without 
going so far as to suggest the halls of the great and 
good and rich, one might mention a number of 
houses of entertainment for man and beast in this 
country, in which Mr. Martin of the Plattville Dry 
Goods Emporium would find himself little at ease.. 


412 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

But even in the extreme case, if Mr. Martin were 
given his choice of being burned to death, or drowned., 
or of spending a month at the most stupendously 
embellished tavern located in our possessions, and 
supposing him to have chosen the third alternate, 
it is probable that he would have grown almost 
accustomed to his surroundings before he died; 
and if he survived the month, we may even fancy 
him really enjoying moments of conversation with 
the night-clerks. 

As Mr. Parker observed. Miss Sherwood did not 
do the Grand Duchess, giving the Carlow tenants a 
treat. She felt no duchess symptoms within herself, 
and though, of course, she had various manners 
tucked away to wear as one suits garments to occa¬ 
sions—and it was a Rouen ‘‘party-gown” wherev 
with she chose to abash poor John Harkless at their 
meeting—here in Carlow, she was a woman of af¬ 
fairs, lively, shrewd, engaging, capable; she was her¬ 
self (at least she was that side of herself). And it 
should be explained that Harkless had based his 
calumny regarding the tariiff on a paragraph or two 
that crept inadvertently into an otherwise states¬ 
manlike article, and that “H. Fisbee” understood 
the tariff as well as any woman who ever lived* 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 413 

But the tariff inspired no more articles from that 
pen. 

Rodney McCune had lifted his head, and those 
who had followed his stricken enemy felt that the 
cause was lost, without the leader. The old ring 
that the “Herald” had crushed was a ring once 
more, and the heelers had rallied—“the boys were 
in line again.” The work had been done quietly, 
and Halloway was already beaten, and beaten badly. 
John Harkless lay sick, and Rodney McCune would 
sit in Congress, for the nomination meant election. 
But one day the Harkless forces, demoralized, 
broken, almost hopeless, woke up to find that they 
had a leader. Many of them were content with the 
belief that this was a young lawyer named Keating, 
who had risen up in Amo; but Mj*. Keating himself 
had a different impression. 

Helen was a little nervous, and very much excited, 
over the political conference at Judge Briscoe’s. 
She planned it with careful diplomacy, and arranged 
the details with a fine sense of the dramatic. There 
was a suggestion she desired to have made in this 
meeting, which she wished should emanate from the 
Amo and Gaines County people, instead of proceed¬ 
ing from Carlow—for she thought it better to make 


414 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


the outsiders believe her idea an inspiration of their 
own—so she made a little comedy and provided for 
Briscoe’s entrance at an effective moment. The 
judge was a substantial influence, strong in the 
councils of his party when he chose to be; and 
though of late years he had contented himself with 
voting at the polls, every one knew what weight he 
carried when he saw fit to bestir himself. 

When he entered the parlor, he found the poli¬ 
ticians in a state of subdued excitement. Helen sat 
by the window, blushing, and talking eagerly to old 
Fisbee. One of the gentlemen from Gaines County 
was walking about the room exclaiming, “A glori¬ 
ous conception! A glorious conception!” address¬ 
ing the bric-a-brac, apparently. (He thought the 
conception his own.) Mr. Martin was tugging at 
his beard and whispering to Landis and Horner, and 
the two Amo men were consulting in a corner, but 
as the judge came in, one of them turned and said 
loudly, “That’s the man.” 

“Wfliat man am I, Keating.?” asked Briscoe^ 
cheerily. 

“We better explain, I guess,” answered the other; 
and turning to his compatriot: “You tell him, Bos¬ 
well.” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 415 

“Well—it’s this way—” said Boswell, and came 
at once to an awkward pause, turning aside sheep¬ 
ishly and unable to proceed. 

“So that’s the way of it, is it.^” said the old gen¬ 
tleman. 

Helen laughed cheerfully, and looked about her 
with a courageous and encouraging eye. “It is 
embarrassing,” she said. “Judge Briscoe, we are 
contemplating ‘a piece of the blackest treachery and 
chicanery.’ We are going to give Mr. Halloway 
the—the go-by!” The embarrassment fell awayj 
and everybody began to talk at once. 

“Hold on a minute,” said the judge; “let’s get 
at it straight. What do you want with me.^^” 

“I’ll tell you,” volunteered Keating. “You see, 
the boys are getting in line again for this conven¬ 
tion. They are the old file that used to rule the 
roost before the ‘Herald’ got too strong for them, 
and they rely on Mr. Harkless’s being sick to beat 
Kedge Halloway with that Gaines County man, 
McCune. Now, none of us here want Rod McCune 
I guess. We had trouble enough once with him 
and his heelers, and now that Mr. Harkless is down, 
they’ve taken advantage of it to raise a revolution: 
Rod McCune for Congress! He’s a dirty-hearted 


416 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


swindler—I hope Miss Sherwood will pardon the 
strong expression—and everybody thought the 
‘Herald’ had driven him out of politics, though it 
never told how it did it; but he’s up on top again. 
Now, the question is to beat him. We hold the 
committees, but the boys have been fighting the 
committees—call ’em the ‘Harkless Ring,’ and 
never understood that the ‘Herald’ would have 
turned us down in a second if it thought we weren’t 
straight. Well, we saw a week ago that Kedge Hal¬ 
loway was going to lose to McCune; we figured it 
out pretty exactly, and there ain’t a ray of hope for 
Kedge. We wrote to Mb*. Harkless about it, and 
asked him to come down—if he’d been on the 
ground last Monday and had begun to work, I don’t 
say but what his personal influence might have 
saved Halloway—but a friend of his, where he’s 
staying, answered the letter: said Mr. Harkless was 
down with a relapse and was very fretful; and he’d 
taken the liberty of reading the letter and tem¬ 
porarily suppressing it under doctor’s orders; they 
were afraid he’d come, sick as he was, from a sense 
of duty, and asked us to withdraw the letter, and 
referred us to Mr. Harkless’s representative on the 
‘Herald.’ So we applied here to Miss Sherwood, 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 417 

and that’s why we had this meeting. Now, Hallo¬ 
way is honest—everybody knows that—and I don’t 
say but what he’s been the best available material 
Mr. Harkless had to send to Washington; but he 
ain’t any too bright-” 

Mr. Martin interrupted the speaker. ‘T reckon, 
maybe, you never heard that lecture of his on the 
‘Past, Present, and Future’.?” 

“Besides that,” Keating continued, “Halloway 
has had it long enough, and he’s got enough glory 
out of it, and, except for getting beat by Rod 
McCune, I believe he’d almost as soon give it up. 
Well, we discussed all this and that, and couldn’t 
come to any conclusion. We didn’t want to keep 
on with a losing fight if there was any w^ay to put 
up a winner, though of course we all recognized 
that Mr. Harkless w^ould want us to support Kedge 
to the death, and that’s what he’d do if he was on 
the ground. But Miss Sherwood mentioned that 
she’d had one note since his last illness began, and 
he’d entrusted her and her associates on the paper 
with the entire policy, and she would take the respon¬ 
sibility for anything we determined on. Mr. Smith 
said the only thing to do was to give up Halloway 
and get a man that could beat McCune; Kedge 


418 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


would recognize it himself, that that was the onlj^ 
thing to do, and he could retire gracefully. Miss 
Sherwood said she was still more or less a stranger, 
and asked what man we could find who was strong 
enough to do it by popularity alone and who was 
also a man we wanted; somebody that had worked 
a good deal, but had never had any office. It was 
to such a man she could promise the ‘Herald’s’ 
support, as for a time the paper was being operated 
almost independently, it might be said, of Mr. 
Harkless. Well, I expect it came to all of us at the 
same time, but it was Mr. Bence here that said it 
first.” 

Mr. Bence was the gentleman who had walked 
about saying “A glorious conception,” and he now 
thrust one hand into his breast and extended the 
other in a wide gesture, and looked as impressive 
as a very young man with white eyebrows can 
look. 

“The name of Harkless,” he said abruptly, “the 
name of Harkless will sweep the convention like the 
fire of a Western prairie; the name of Harkless will 
thunder over their astonished heads and strike a 
peal of joy bells in every home in the district; it will 
re-echo in the corridors of posterity and teem with 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 4ia 


prosperity like a mighty river. The name of Dark¬ 
less will reverberate in that convention hall, and 
they shall sit ashamed.’’ 

“Harkless!” exclaimed the judge. “Why didn’t 
some one think of that long ago.^^” 

“Then you approve.^” asked Keating. 

“Yes, I think I do!” 

The Amo man shook hands with him. “We’ll 
swim out,” he exclaimed. “It will be the same 
everywhere. A lot of the old crowd themselves will 
be swept along with us when we make our nomina¬ 
tion. People feel that that Cross-Roads business 
ought never to have been allowed to happen, and 
they’d like to make it up to him some v/ay. There 
are just two difficulties, Halloway and Mr. Harkless 
himself. It’s a sure thing that he wouldn’t come out 
against Kedge and that he’d refuse to let his name 
be used against him. Therefore, we’ve got to keep 
it quiet from him; the whole thing has to be worked 
quietly. The McCune folks were quiet until they 
thought they were sure; we’ve got to be quieter still. 
Well, we’ve made out a plan.” 

“And a plan that will operate,” added Mr. Bence. 
“For the name of Harkless shall—” Mr. Keating 
interrupted him energetically: 


420 THE GENTLEIMAN FP.OM INDIANA 


‘‘We explain it to all the Halloway delegates, you 
see, and to all the shaky McCune people, and inter¬ 
view all the undecided ones. The McCune crowd 
may see them afterwards, but they can’t fix men in 
this district against John Harkless. All weVe got 
to do is to pass the word. It’s all kept quiet, you 
understand. We go into the convention, and the 
names of Hallo way and McCune are placed before 
it. Then will come a speech naming Harkless—and 
you want to stuff your ears with cotton! On the 
first ballot Harkless gets the scattering vote that 
was going to nominate McCune if we’d let things 
run, and Halloway is given every vote he’d have 
got if he’d run against McCune alone; it’s as a 
compliment; it will help him see how things were, 
afterwards; and on the second ballot his vote goes 
to Harkless. There won’t be any hitch if we get 
down to work right off; it’s a mighty short cam¬ 
paign, but we’ve got big chances. Of course, it 
can’t be helped that Halloway has to be kept in 
the dark; he won’t spend any money, anyway.” 

“It looks a little underhanded at first glance,” 
said Warren Smith; “but, as Miss Sherwood said, 
you’ve got to be a little underhanded sometimes, 
especially when you’re dealing with as scrupulous a 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA m 


man as John Harkless. But it’s a perfectly honest 
deal, and it will be all right with him when he finds 
3t’s all over and he’s nominated.” 

“It’s a plain case,” added Boswell. ”We want 
him, and we’ve got to have him.” 

‘'There’s one danger,” Mr. Keating continued. 
“Kedge Hallo way is honest, but I believe he’» 
selfish enough to disturb his best friend’s death¬ 
bed for his own ends, and it’s not unlikely that he 
will get nervous towards the last and be telegraph¬ 
ing Harkless to have himself carried on a cot to the 
convention to save him. That wouldn’t do at all, 
of course, and Miss Sherwood thinks maybe there’d 
be less danger if we set the convention a little ahead 
of the day appointed. It’s dangerous, because it 
shortens our time; but we can fix it for three days 
before the day we’d settled on, and that will bring 
it to September 7th. What we want of you, judge, 
is to go to the convention as a delegate, and make 
the nominating speech for Mr. Harkless. Will you 

do itr 

“Do it.^” cried the old man, and he struck the 
table a resounding blow with his big fist. “Do it.^ 
I’d walk from here to Rouen and back again to do 
it!” 


422 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


They were all on their feet at this, and they 
pressed forward to shake Briscoe’s hand, congra¬ 
tulating him and each other as though they were 
already victorious. Mr. Martin bent over Helen 
and asked her if she minded shaking hands with a 
man who had voted for Shem at the first election 
in the Ark. 

‘T thought I’d rightly ort to thank you for 
finishin’ off Kedge Halloway,” he added. ‘T made 
up my mind I’d never vote for him again, the night 
he killed that intellectual insect of his.” 

“Intellectual insect, Mr. Martin?” she asked, 
puzzled. 

He sighed. “The recollection never quits ha’ntin’ 
me. I reckon I haven’t had a restful night since 
June. Maybe you don’t remember his lecture.” 

“Oh, but I do,” she laughed; “and I remember 
the story of the fly, vividly.” 

“I never was jest what you might exactly call 
gushin’ over Kedge,” Mr. Martin drawled. “He 
doesn’t strike me as havin’ many ideas, precisely— 
he had kind of a symptom of one once, that he 
caught from Harkless, but it didn’t take; it sloshed 
around in his mind and never really come out on 
him. I always thought his brain was sort of syrupy. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 423 

Harkless thought there was fruit in it, and I reckon 
there is; but some way it never seems to jell.” 

“Go on,” said Helen gayly. “I want to hear 
him abused. It helps me to feel less mean about 
the way we are treating him.” 

“Yes; I’m slickin’ over my conscience, too. I 
feel awnrier about it because he done me a good 
turn once, in the Hayes and Wheeler campaign. 
I went to a meetin’ to hear him speak, and he got 
sick and couldn’t.” 

Warren Smith addressed the company. “Well, is 
this all for the present?” he asked. “Is everything 
settled?” 

“Wait a minute,” said Keating. “I’d like to 
hear from the ‘Herald’ about its policy, if Miss 
Sherwood will tell us.” 

“Yes, indeed,” she answered. “It will be very 
simple. Don’t you think there is only one course 
to pursue? We will advocate no one very energet¬ 
ically, but we will print as much of the truth about 
Mr. McCune as we can, with delicacy and honor, in 
this case, but, as I understand it, the work is almost 
all to be done amongst the delegates. We shall 
not mention our plan at all—but—but, when the 
convention is over, and he is nominated, we will get 


424 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


out an extra; and I am so confident of your success 
that I’ll tell you now that the extra will be ready the 
night before the convention. We will contrive that 
Mr. Harkless shall not receive his copy of the paper 
containing the notice of the change of date, and I 
think the chance of his seeing it in any Rouen paper 
may be avoided. That is all, I think.” 

“Thank you,” said Keating. “That is certainly 
the course to follow.” Every one nodded, or acqui¬ 
esced in words; and Keating and Bence came over 
to Helen and engaged her in conversation. The 
others began to look about for their hats, vaguely 
preparing to leave. 

“Wait a minute,” said the judge. “There’s no 
train due just now.” And Minnie appeared in the 
doorway with a big pitcher of crab-apple cider, rich 
and amber-hued, sparkling, cold, and redolent of 
the sweet-smelling orchard where it was bora. 
Behind Miss Briscoe came Mildy Upton with glasses 
and a fat, shaking, four-storied jelly-cake on a 
second tray. The judge passed his cigars around, 
and the gentlemen took them blithely, then hesi¬ 
tatingly held them in their fingers and glanced at 
the ladies, uncertain of permission. 

“Let me get you some matches,” Helen said 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 425 

quickly, and found a box on the table and handed 
it to Keating. Every one sat beaming, and fragrant 
veils of smoke soon draped the room. 

“Why do you call her ‘Miss Sherwood’?’’ Boswell 
whispered in Keating’s ear. 

“That’s her name.” 

**Ain’t she the daughter of that old fellow over 
there by the window? Ain’t her name Fisbee?” 

“No; she’s his daughter, but her legal name’s 
Sherwood; she’s an adop-” 

“Great Scott! I know all about that. I’d like to 
know if there’s a man, woman, or child in this part 
of the country that doesn’t. I guess it won’t be 
Fisbee or Sherwood either very long. She can easy 
get a new name, that lady! And if she took a fancy 
to Boswell, why, I’m a bach-” 

“I expect she won’t take a fancy to Boswell very 
early,” said Keating. “They say it will be Harkless.” 

“Go ’way,” returned Mr. Boswell. “What do 
you want to say that for? Can’t you bear for any¬ 
body to be happy a minute or two, now and then?” 

Warren Smith approached Helen and inquired if 
it would be asking too much if they petitioned her 
for some music; so she went to the piano, and sang 
some darky songs for them, with a quaint sugges- 



426 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


tion of the dialect—two or three old-fashioned negro 
melodies of Foster’s, followed by some rollicking 
modem imitations with the movement and spirit of 
a tinshop falling down a flight of stairs. Her audi¬ 
ence listened in delight from the first; but the latter 
songs quite overcame them with pleasure and admi¬ 
ration, and before she finished, every head in the 
room was jogging from side to side, and forward 
and back, in time to the music, while every foot 
shuffled the measures on the carpet. 

When the gentlemen from out of town discovered 
that it was time to leave if they meant to catch their 
train, Helen called to them to wait, and they 
gathered about her. 

“Just one second,” she said, and she poured all 
the glasses full to the brim; then, standing in the 
centre of the circle they made around her, she said: 

“Before you go, shan’t we pledge each other to 
our success in this good, home-grown Indiana cider, 
that leaves our heads clear and our arms strong.^ If 
you will—then—” She began to blush furiously 
and her voice trembled, but she lifted the glass 
high over her head and cried bravely, “Here’s to 
‘Our Candidate’!” 

The big men, towering over her, threw back their 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 427 


heads and quaffed the gentle liquor to the last 
drop. Then they sent up the first shout of the 
campaign, and cheered John Harkless till the rafters 
rang. 

“My friends,” said Mr. Keating, as he and Bos¬ 
well and the men from Gaines drove away in Judd 
Bennett’s onmibus, “my friends, here is where I 
begin the warmest hustling I ever did. I want 
Harkless, everybody wants him-” 

“It is a glorious idea,” said Mr. Bence. “The 
name of Harkless-” 

Keating drowned the oratory. “But that isn’t all. 
That little girl wants him to go to Conrgess, and 
that settles it. He goes.” 

That evening Minnie and her father were strolling 
up and down the front walk together, between the 
flowered borders. 

“Do you give up?” asked the judge. 

“Give up what? No!” returned his daughter. 

“She hasn’t told you?” 

“Not yet; she and Mr. Fisbee left for the office 
right after those men went.” 

“Haven’t you discovered what the ‘something 
about politics’ she’s doing for him is? Did you 
understand what she meant by ‘Our Candidate’?” 


428 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“Not exactly.” 

“Did you see her blush when she proposed that 
toast?” 

“Yes. So would anybody—with all those men, 
and their eyes hanging out on their cheeks!” 

“Pooh! She got up the whole show. Do you 
know why?” 

“I only know it’s politics.” 

“Politics!” He glanced over his shoulder, and 
then, leaning toward her, he said, in a low tone: 
“I’ll tell you in confidence, Minnie; she’s sending 
him to Congress!” 

“Ah!” she cried triumphantly. “If she loved him 
she wouldn’t do that, would she?” 

“Minnie!” Briscoe turned upon her sternly. “I 
don’t want to hear any more talk like that. It’s 
the way with some papers to jibe at our great insti¬ 
tutions, and you’ve been reading them; that’s the 
trouble with you. The only criticism any one has 
any business making against Congress is that it’s 
too good for some of the men we send there. Con¬ 
gress is our great virtue, imderstand; the congress¬ 
men are our fault.” 

“I didn’t mean anything hke that,” protested the 
girl. “I haven’t been reading any papers except the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 429 

‘Herald.’ I meant why should she send him away 
if she cared about him?” 

“She’ll go with him.” 

“They couldn’t both go. What would become 
of the ‘Herald’?” 

“They’d fix that easy enough; there are plenty of 
smart young fellows in Rouen they could get to run 
it while they are in Washington.” 

“]\Ir. Harkless is sure to be elected, is he?” 

“He is, if he’s nominated.” 

“Can’t he get the nomination?” 

“Get it! Nobody ever happened to think of him 
for it till it came into her head; and the only thing 
I look to see standing in the way of it is Harkless 
himself; but I expect we can leave it to her to 
manage, and I guess she will. She’s got more 
diplomacy than Blaine. Kedge Halloway is up 
the spout all right, but they want to keep it quiet; 
that’s why she had them come here instead of the 
office.” 

“She wouldn’t marry him a minute sooner because 
he went to Congress,” said Minnie thoughtfully. 

“You’re giving up,” he exclaimed. “You know 
I’m right.” 

“Wait and see. It might— No, you’re wrong 


430 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


as wrong can be! I wish you weren’t. Don’t you 
see.^ You’re blind. She couldn’t do all these things 
for him if she loved him. That’s the very proof 
itself. I suppose you—well, you can’t under¬ 
stand.” 

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he returned. “If she 
doesn’t, the rest of it won’t amount to a rip with 
John Harkless.” 

“Yes, it will. Nobody could help hking to find 
himseK as big a man as he’ll be when he comes 
back here. Besides, don’t you see, it’s her way of 
making it up to him for not liking him as much as 
he wants. You give up, don’t you.^^” 

“No,” he cried, with feeble violence, “I don’t. 
She’ll find out some things about herseK when she 
sees him again.” 

Minnie shook her head. 

There was a sound of wheels; the buckboard drew 
up at the gate, and Helen, returning from her even¬ 
ing’s labor, jumped out lightly, and ran around to 
pat the horses’ heads. “Thank you so much, Mr. 
Willetts,” she said to the driver. “I know you will 
handle the two delegates you are to look after as 
well as you do the judge’s team; and you ought to, 
you know, because the delegates are men. You 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 431 

dears!” She stroked the sleek necks of the colts and 
handed them bunches of grass. 

Briscoe came out, and let the friendly animals 
nose his shoulder as he looked gravely down on 
the piquant face beside him in the dusk. “Young 
lady,” he said, “go East. Wait till we get on to 
Washington, and sit in the gallery, and see John 
Harkless rise up in his place, and hear the Speaker 
say: ‘The Gentleman from Indiana!’ I know the 
chills would go up and down my spine, and I guess 
you’d feel pretty well paid for your day’s work. I 
guess we all would.” 

“Aren’t you tired, Helen.^” asked Minnie, com¬ 
ing to her in the darkness and clasping her waist. 

“Tired.? No; I’m happy. Did you ever see the 
stars so bright?” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE TREACHERY OF H. FISBEE 

A n Indiana town may lie asleep a long time, 
but there always comes a day when it 
wakes up; and Plattville had wakened in 
August when the “Herald’’ became a daily and 
Eph Watts struck oil. It was then that history 
began to be made. The “Herald” printed News, 
and the paper was sold every morning at stands in 
all the towns in that section of the State. Its cir¬ 
culation tripled. Parker talked of new presses; two 
men were added to his staff, and a reporter was 
brought from Rouen to join Mr. Eisbee. The 
“Herald” boomed the oil-field; people swarmed into 
town; the hotel was crowded; strangers became no 
sensation whatever. A capitalist bought the whole 
north side of the Square to erect new stores, and the 
Carlow Bank began the construction of a new bank 
building of Bedford stone on Main Street. Then 
it was whispered, next aflSrmed, that the “Herald” 

had succeeded in another of its enterprises, and 
432 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 433 

Main Street was to be asphalted. That was the 
end of the “old days” of Plattville. 

There was a man who had laid the foundation 
upon which the new Plattville was to be built; he 
who, through the quiet labor of years, had stamped 
his spirit upon the people, as their own was stamped 
upon him; but he lay sick in his friend’s house and 
did not care. One day Meredith found him propped 
up in bed, reading a letter—reading it listlessly, and 
with a dull eye. 


“Plattville, September 1st. 

**Dear Mr. Uarkless: Yours of the 30th received. Every one here 
is very glad to know that your health is so far improved as to admit 
of your writing; and it is our strongest hope that you will soon be 
completely recovered. 

“New subscriptions are coming in at a slightly advanced rate 
since my last letter; you will see they are distributed over several 
counties, when you examine the books on your return; and I am 
glad to state that with our arrangement for Gainesville the ‘Herald’ 
is now selling every morning at a prominent store in all the towns 
within the radius we determined on. Our plan of offering the daily 
with no advance on the price of the former tri-weekly issue proves 
a success. I now propose making the issue a quarto every day (at 
the same price) instead of once a week. I think our experience 
warrants the experiment. It is my belief that our present circula¬ 
tion will be increased forty per cent. Please advise me if you ap¬ 
prove. Of course this would mean a further increase of our working 
force, and we should have to bring another man from Rouen— 
possibly two more—but I think we need not fear such enlargements. 


434 THE GENTLEjMAN FROM INDIANA 


“I should tell you that I have taken you at your word entrusting 
me with the entire charge of your interests here, and I had the 
store-room adjoining the office put in shape, and offered it to the 
telegraph company for half the rent they were paying in their 
former quarters over the post-office. They have moved in; and 
this, in addition to giving us our despatches direct, is a reduction of 
expense. 

“Mr. Watts informs me that the Standard’s offer is liberal and 
the terms are settled. The boom is not hollow, it is simply an 
awakening; and the town, so long a dependent upon the impetus 
of agriculture or its trade, is developing a prosperity of its own on 
other lines as well. Strangers come every day; oil has lubricated 
every commercial joint. Contracts have been let for three new 
brick business buildings to be erected on the east side of the Square. 
The value of your Main Street frontage will have doubled by 
December, and possibly you may see fit to tear away the present 
building and put up another, instead; the investment might be 
profitable. The ‘Herald’ could find room on the second and third 
floors, and the first could be let to stores. 

“I regret that you find your copy of the paper for the 29th over¬ 
looked in the mail and that your messenger could find none for 
you at the newspaper offices in Rouen. Mr. Schofield was given 
ilirections in regard to supplying you with the missing issue at once. 

“I fear that you may have had difficulty in deciphering some of 
my former missives, as I was unfamiliar with the typewriter when 
I took charge of the ‘Herald’; however, I trust that you find my 
3iater letters more legible. 

“The McCune people are not worrying us; we are sure to defeat 
them. The papers you speak of were found by Mr. Parker in your 
trunk, and are now in my hands. 

“I send with this a packet of communications and press clippings 
indicative of the success of the daily, and in regard to other inno¬ 
vations The letters from women commendatory of our ‘Woman’s 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 435 

Page,* thanking us for various house-keeping receipts, etc., strike me 
as peculiarly interesting, as I admit that a ‘Woman’s Page’ is always 
a difficult matter for a man to handle without absurdity. 

“Please do not think I mean to plume myself upon our various 
successes; we attempted our innovations and enlargements at just 
the right time—a time which you had ripened by years of work 
and waiting, and at the moment when you had built up the reputa¬ 
tion of the ‘Herald’ to its highest point. Everything that has been 
done is successful only because you paved the way, and because 
every one knows it is your paper; and the people believe that what¬ 
ever your paper does is interesting and right. 

“Trusting that your recovery will be rapid, I am 
“Yours truly, 

“H. Fisbee.” 

Harkless dropped the typewritten sheets with a 
sigh. 

“I suppose I ought to get well,” he said wearily. 

“Yes,” said Meredith, “I think you ought; but 
you’re chock full of malaria and fever and all kinds 
of meanness, and-” 

“You ’tend to your own troubles,” returned the 
other, with an imitation of liveliness. “I—I don’t 
think it interests me much,” he said querulously. 
He was often querulous of late, and it frightened 
Tom. “I’m just tired. I am strong enough—that 
is, I think I am till I try to move around, and then 
I’m like a log, and a lethargy gets me—that’s it; I 
don’t think it’s malaria; it’s lethargy.” 



436 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


‘‘Lethargy comes from malaria.” 

“It’s the other way with me. I’d be all right if 
I only could get ever this—this tiredness. Let me 
have that pencil and pad, will you, please, Tom?” 

He set the pad on his knee, and began to write 
languidly: 

“Rouen, September 2d. 

**D6ar Mr. Fisbee: Yours of the 1st to hand. I entirely approve 
all arrangements you have made. I think you understand that I 
wish you to regard everything as in your own hands. You are the 
editor of the ‘Herald’ and have the sole responsibility for every¬ 
thing, including policy, until, after proper warning, I relieve you in 
person. But until that time comes, you must look upon me as a 
mere spectator. I do not fear that you will make any mistakes; 
you have done very much better in all matters than I could have 
done myself. At present I have only one suggestion: I observe 
that your editorials concerning Halloway’s renomination are some¬ 
thing lukewarm. 

“It is very important that he be renominated, not altogether on 
account of assuring his return to Washington (for he is no Madison, 
I fear), but the fellow McCune must be so beaten that his defeat 
will be remembered for twenty years. Halloway is honest and 
clean, at least, while McCune is corrupt to the bone. He has been 
bought and sold, and I am glad the proofs of it are in your hands, 
as you tell me Parker found them, as directed, in my trunk, and 
gave them to you. 

“The papers you hold drove him out of politics once, by the mere 
threat of publication; you should have printed them last week, as I 
suggested. Do so at once; the time is short. You have been too 
gentle; it has the air of fearing to offend, and of catering, as if we 
were afraid of antagonizing people against us; as though we had a 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 437 


personal stake in the convention. Possibly you consider our 
subscription books as such; I do not. But if they are, go 
ahead twice as hard. What if it does give the enemy a weapon in 
case McCune is nominated; if he is (and I begin to see a danger of 
it) we will be vyith the enemy. I do not carry my partisanship so fat 
as to help elect Mr. McCune to Congress. You have been as non¬ 
committal in your editorials as if this were a fit time for delicacy, 
and the cheaper conception of party policy. My notion of party 
policy—no new one—is that the party which considers the public 
service before it considers itself will thrive best in the long run. 
The ‘Herald’ is a little paper (not so little nowadays, after all, thanks 
to you), but it is an honest one, and it isn’t afraid of Rod McCune 
and his friends. He is to be beaten, understand, if we have to send 
him to the penitentiary on an old issue to do it. And if the people 
wish to believe us cruel or vengeful, let them. Please let me sec 
as hearty a word as you can say for Halloway, also. You can write 
with ginger; please show some in this matter. 

“My condition is improved. 

“I am, very truly yours, 

“John Harkless.” 

When the letter was concluded, he handed it to 
Meredith. “Please address that, put a ‘special’ on 
it, and send it, Tom. It should go at once, so as to 
reach him by to-night.” 

“H. Fisbee.?” 

“Yes; H. Fisbee.” 

“I believe it does you good to write, boy,” said 
the other, as he bent over him. “You look more 
chirrupy than you have for several days.” 

“It’s that beast, McCune; young Fisbee is rather 


438 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

queer about it, and I felt stirred up as I went along/’ 
But even before the sentence was finished the favor 
of age and utter weariness returned, and the dark 
lids closed over his eyes. They opened again, 
slowly, and he took the other’s hand and looked 
up at him mournfully, but as it were his soul shone 
forth in dumb and eloquent thanks. 

‘T—I’m giving you a jolly summer, Tom,” he 
said, with a quivering effort to smile. ‘'Don’t you 
think I am.^^ I don’t—I don’t know what I should 
have—done ” 

“You old Indian!” said Meredith, tenderly. 

Three days later, Tom was rejoiced by symptoms 
of invigoration in his patient. A telegram came for 
Harkless, and Meredith, bringing it into the sick 
room, was surprised to find the occupant sitting 
straight up on his couch without the prop of pillows. 
He was reading the day’s copy of the “Herald,’* 
and his face was flushed and his brow stem. 

“What’s the matter, boy.^” 

“Mismanagement, I hope,” said the other, in a 
strong voice. ‘AVorse, perhaps. It’s this young 
Fisbee. I can’t think what’s come over the fellow. 
I thought he was a rescuing angel, and he’s turning 
out bad. I’ll swear it looks like they’d been—well. 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 439 

1 won’t say that yet. But he hasn’t printed that 
McCune business I told you of, and he’s had two 
days. There is less than a week before the con¬ 
vention, and—” He broke off, seeing the yellow 
envelope in Meredith’s hand. ‘Ts that a telegram 
for me?” His companion gave it to him. He tore 
it open and read the contents. They were brief and 
unhappy. 

“Can’t you do something? Can’t you come down? It begins to 
look the other way. 

“K. H.” 

“It’s from Halloway,” said John. “I have got 
to go. What did that doctor say?” 

“He said two weeks at the earliest, or you’ll run 
into typhoid and complications from your hurts, and 
even pleasanter things than that. I’ve got you here, 
and here you stay; so lie back and get easy, boy.” 

“Then give me that pad and pencil.” He rapidly 
dashed off a note to H. Fisbee: 

**Se'ptemher 5th. 

“H. Fisbee, 

“Editor ‘Carlow Herald.’ 

*‘Dear Sir: You have not acknowledged my letter of the 2d 
September by a note (which should have reached me the following 
morning), or by the alteration in the tenor of my columns which I 
requested, or by the publication of the McCune papers which I 
oirected- In this I hold you grossly at fault. If you have a con« 


440 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


fidentious reason for refusing to carry out my request it should 
have been communicated to me at once, as should the fact—if 
such be the case—that you are a personal (or impersonal, if you 
like) friend of Mr. Rodney McCune. Whatever the motive, ulterior 
or otherwise, which prevents you from operating my paper as I 
direct, I should have been informed of it. This is a matter vital to 
the interests of our community, and you have hitherto shown your^ 
self too alert in accepting my slightest suggestion for me to construe 
this failure as negligence. Negligence I might esteem as at least 
honest and frank; your course has been neither the one nor the 
other. 

“You vdll receive this letter by seven this evening by special 
delivery. You will print the facts concerning McCune in to-morrow 
morning’s paper. 

“I am well aware of the obligations under which your extreme 
efficiency and your thoughtfulness in many matters have placed 
me. It is to you I owe my unearned profits from the transaction in 
oil, and it is to you I owe the ‘Herald’s’ extraordinary present circu¬ 
lation, growth of power and influence. That power is still under my 
direction, and is an added responsibility which shall not be mis¬ 
applied. 

“You must forgive me if I write too sharply. You see I have 
failed to understand your silence; and if I wrong you I heartily ask 
your pardon in advance of your explanation. Is it that you are 
sorry for McCune.? It would be a weak pity that could keep you 
to silence. I warned him long ago that the papers you hold would 
be published if he ever tried to return to political life, and he is 
deliberately counting on my physical weakness and absence. Let 
him rely upon it; I am not so weak as he thinks. Personally, I 
cannot say that I dislike Mr. McCune. I have fcrund him a very 
entertaining fellow; it is said he is the best of husbands, and a true 
friend to some of his friends, and. believe me, I am sorry for him 
from the bottom of my heart. But the ‘Herald’ is not. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 441 

**You need not reply by letter. To-morrow’s issue answers for 
you. Until I have received a copy, I withhold my judgment. 

“John Habkless.” 

The morrow’s issue—that fateful print on which 
depended John Harkless’s opinion of H. Fisbee’s 
integrity—contained an editorial addressed to the 
delegates of the convention, warning them to act for 
the vital interest of the community, and declaring 
that the opportunity to be given them in the present 
convention was a rare one, a singular piece of good 
fortune indeed; they were to have the chance to 
vote for a man who had won the love and respect 
of every person in the district—one who had suffered 
for his championship of righteousness—one whom 
even his few political enemies confessed they held 
in personal affection and esteem—one who had been 
the inspiration of a new era—one whose life had 
been helpfulness, whose hand had reached out to 
every struggler and unfortunate—a man who had 
met and faced danger for the sake of others—one 
who lived under a threat for years, and who had 
been almost overborne in the fulfilment of that 
threat, but who would live to see the sun shine on 
his triumph, the tribute the convention would bring 
him as a gift from a community that loved him. 


442 THE GENILEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 

His name needed not to be told; it was on every lip 
that morning, and in every heart. 

Tom was eagerly watching his companion as he 
read. Harkless fell back on the pillows with a 
drawn face, and for a moment he laid his thin hand 
over his eyes in a gesture of intense pain. 

“What is it.^” Meredith said quickly. 

“Give me the pad, please.” 

“What is it, boy.^” 

The other’s teeth snapped together. 

“What is it.^” he cried. “What is it.^ It’s treach¬ 
ery, and the worst I ever knew. Not a word of the 
accusation I demanded—lying 'praises instead! Read 
that editorial—there, there!'^ He struck the page 
with the back of his hand, and threw the paper to 
Meredith. “Read that miserable lie! ‘One who has 
won the love and respect of every person in the 
district!’—‘One who has suffered for his champion¬ 
ship of righteousness!’ Righteousness! Save the 
mark!” 

“What does it mean.?*” 

“Mean! It means McCune—Rod McCune, ‘who 
has lived under a threat for years’— m'y threat! I 
swore I would print him out of Indiana if he ever 
raised his head again, and he knew I could. ‘Almost 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 443 

overborne in the fulfilment of that threat!’ Almost! 
It’s a black scheme, and I see it now. This man 
came to Plattville and went on the ‘Herald’ for 
nothing in the world but this. It’s McCune’s hand 
all along. He daren’t name him even now, the 
coward! The trick lies between McCune and young 
Fisbee—the old man is innocent. Give me the pad. 
Not almost overborne. There are three good days 
to work in, and, by the gods of Perdition, if Rod 
McCune sees Congress it will be in his next incar¬ 
nation !” 

He rapidly scribbled a few lines on the pad, and 
threw the sheets to Meredith. “Get those tele¬ 
grams to the Western Union office in a rush, please. 
Read them first.” 

With a very red face Tom read them. One was 
addressed to H. Fisbee: 

“You are relieved from the cares of editorship. You will turn 
over the management of the ‘Herald’ to Warren Smith. You will 
give him the McCune papers. If you do not, or if you destroy 
them, you cannot hide where I shall not find you. 

“John Harkless.’* 

The second was to Warren Smith: 

“Take possession ‘Herald.’ Dismiss H. Fisbee. This your au¬ 
thority. Publish McCune papers so labelled which H. Fisbee will 
hand you. Letter follows. Beat McCune. 


‘John Harklbss.’ 


444 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


The author of the curt epistles tossed restlessly 
on his couch, but the reader of them stared, incred¬ 
ulous and dumfounded, uncertain of his command 
of gravity. His jaw fell, and his open mouth might 
have betokened a being smit to imbecility; and, 
haply, he might be, for Helen had written him from 
Plattville, pledging his honor to secrecy with the 
first words, and it was by her command that he had 
found excuses for not supplying his patient with all 
the papers which happened to contain references to 
the change of date for the Plattville convention. 
And Meredith had known for some time where 
James Fisbee had found a “young relative” to be 
the savior of the “Herald” for his benefactor’s 
sake. 

“You mean—^you—^intend to—^you discharge 
young Fisbee?” he stammered at last. 

“Yes! Let me have the answers the instant they 
come, will you, Tom?” Then Harkless turned his 
face from the wall and spoke through his teeth: 
“I mean to see H. Fisbee before many days; I want 
to talk to him!” 

But, though he tossed and fretted himself into 
what the doctor pronounced a decidedly improved 
state, no answer came to either telegram that day or 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 445 


night. The next morning a messenger boy stumbled 
up the front steps and handed the colored man, Jim, 
four yellow envelopes, night messages. Three of 
them were for Harkless, one was for Meredith. 
Jim carried them upstairs, left the three with his 
master’s guest, then knocked on his master’s door. 

“What is it.^” answered a thick voice. Mere¬ 
dith had not yet risen. 

“A telegraph, Mist’ Tawm.” 

There was a terrific yawn. “0-o-oh! Slide it— 
oh—under the—door.” 

“Yessuh.” 

Meredith lay quite without motion for several 
minutes, sleepily watching the yellow rhomboid in 
the crevice. It was a hateful looking thing to come 
mixing in with pleasant dreams and insist upon 
being read. After a while he climbed groaningly 
out of bed, and read the message with heavy eyes, 
still half asleep. He read it twice before it pene¬ 
trated : 

“Suppress all newspapers to-day. Convention meets at eleven. 
If we succeed a delegation will come to Rouen this afternoon. They 
will come. 

“Helen.” 

Tom rubbed his sticky eyelids, and shook his head 
violently in a Spartan effort to rouse himself; but 


446 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


what more effectively performed the task for him 
were certain sounds issuing from Harkless’s room, 
across the hall. For some minutes, Meredith had 
been dully conscious of a rustle and stir in the in¬ 
valid’s chamber, and he began to realize that no 
mere tossing about a bed would account for a noise 
that reached him across a wide hall and through two 
closed doors of thick walnut. Suddenly he heard a 
quick, heavy tread, shod, in Harkless’s room, and a 
resounding bang, as some heavy object struck the 
floor. The doctor was not to come till evening; Jim 
had gone down-stairs. Who wore shoes in the sick 
man’s room? He rushed across the hall in his 
pyjamas and threw open the unlocked door. 

The bed was disarranged and vacant. Harkless, 
fully dressed, was standing in the middle of the floor, 
hurhng garments at a big travelling bag. 

The horrified Meredith stood for a second, bleached 
and speechless, then he rushed upon his friend and 
seized him with both hands. 

“Mad, by heaven! Mad!” 

“Let go of me, Tom!” 

‘ ‘Lunatic! Lunatic!’ ’ 

“Don’t stop me one instant!” 

Meredith tried to force him toward the bed, “For 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 447 

mercy’s sake, get back to bed. You’re delirious, 
boy!” 

“Delirious nothing. I’m a well man.” 

“Go to bed—go to bed.” 

Harkless set him out of the way with one arm, 
“Bed be hanged!” he cried. “I’m going to Platt- 
ville!” 

Meredith wrung his hands. “The doctor-” 

“Doctor be damned!” 

“Will you tell me what has happened, John?” 

His companion slung a light overcoat, unfolded, 
on the overflowing, misshapen bundle of clothes that 
lay in the bag; then he jumped on the lid with both 
feet and kicked the hasp into the lock; a very ele¬ 
gantly laundered cuff and white sleeve dangling out 
from between the fastened lids. “I haven’t one sec¬ 
ond to talk, Tom; I have seventeen minutes to catch 
the express, and it’s a mile and a half to the station; 
the train leaves here at eight fifty, I get to Plattville 
at ten forty-seven. Telephone for a cab for me, 
please, or tell me the number; I don’t want to stop 
to hunt it up.” 

Meredith looked him in the eyes. In the pupils 
of Harkless flared a fierce light. His cheeks were 
reddened with an angry, healthy glow, and his teeth 


448 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


were clenched till the line of his jaw stood out like 
that of an embattled athlete in sculpture; his brow 
was dark; his chest was thrown out, and he took 
deep, quick breaths; his shoulders were squared, and 
in spite of his thinness they looked massy. Lethargy, 
or malaria, or both, whatever were his ailments, they 
were gone. He was six feet of hot wrath and cold 
resolution. 

Tom said: ‘‘You are going?” 

“Yes,” he answered, “I am going.” 

“Then I will go with you.” 

“Thank you, Tom,” said the other quietly. 

Meredith ran into his own rooni, pressed an elec« 
trie button, sprang out of his pyjamas like Aphrodite 
from the white sea-foam, and began to dive into his 
clothes with a panting rapidity astonishingly foreign 
to his desire. Jim appeared in the doorway. 

“The cart, Jim,” shouted his master. “We want 
it like lightning. Tell the cook to give Mr. Harkless 
his breakfast in a hurry. Set a cup of coffee on the 
table by the front door for me. Run Hke the deuce! 
We’ve got to catch a train.—That will be quicker 
than any cab,” he explained to Harkless. “We’ll 
break the ordinance against fast driving, getting 
down there.” 


THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA M9 

Ten minutes later the cart swept away from the 
house at a gait which pained the respectable neigh¬ 
borhood. The big horse plunged through the air, 
his ears laid flat toward his tail; the cart careened 
sickeningly; the face of the servant clutching at the 
rail in the rear was smeared with pallor as they 
pirouetted around curves on one wheel—to him it 
seemed they skirted the comers and Death simul¬ 
taneously—and the speed of their going made a 
strong wind in their faces. 

Harkless leaned forward. 

“Can you make it a little faster, Tom?” he said. 

They dashed up to the station amid the cries of 
people flying to the walls for safety; the two gentle¬ 
men leaped from the cart, bore down upon the ticket- 
oflice, stormed at the agent, and ran madly at the 
gates, flourishing their passports. The oflScial on 
duty eyed them wearily, and barred the way. 

“Been gone two minutes,” he remarked, with a 
peaceable yawn. 

Harkless stamped his foot on the cement flags; 
then he stood stock still, gazing at the empty tracks; 
but Meredith turned to him, smiling. 

“Won’t it keep?” he asked. 

“Yes, it will keep,” John answered. “Part of it 


4.50 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


may have to keep till election day, but some of it 1 
will settle before night. And that,” he cried, be¬ 
tween his teeth, ‘‘and that is the part of it in regard 
to young Mr. Fisbee!” 

“Oh, it’s about H. Fisbee, is it?” 

“Yes, it’s H. Fisbee.” 

“Well, we might as well go up and see what the 
doctor thinks of you; there’s no train.” 

“I don’t want to see a doctor again, ever—as long 
as I live. I’m as well as anybody.” 

Tom burst out laughing, and clapped his com¬ 
panion lightly on the shoulder, his eyes dancing with 
pleasure. 

“Upon my soul,” he cried, “I believe you are! 
It’s against all my tradition, and I see I am the gull 
of poetry; for I’ve always believed it to be beyond 
question that this sort of miracle was wrought, not 
by rage, but by the tenderer senti—” Tom checked 
himself. “Well, let’s take a drive.” 

“Meredith,” said the other, turning to him 
gravely, “you may think me a fool, if you will, and 
it’s likely I am; but I don’t leave this station except 
by train. I’ve only two days to work in, and every 
minute lessens our chances to beat McCune, and I 
have to begin by wasting time on a tussle with a 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROIH INDIANA 451 

traitor. There’s another train at eleven fifty-five; I 
don’t take any chances on missing that one.” 

“Well, well,” laughed his friend, pushing him 
good-humoredly toward a door by a red and white 
striped pillar, “we’ll wait here, if you like; but at 
least go in there and get a shave; it’s a clean shop. 
You want to look your best if you are going down to 
fight H. Fisbee.” 

“Take these, then, and you will understand,” said 
Harkless; and he thrust his three telegrams of the 
morning into Tom’s hand and disappeared into the 
barber-shop. When he was gone, Meredith went 
to the telegraph office in the station, and sent a line 
over the wire to Helen: 

“Keep your delegation at home. He’s coming on the 11.55.” 

Then he read the three telegrams Harkless had 
given him. They were all from Plattville: 

“Sorry cannot oblige. Present incumbent tenacious. Uncon¬ 
ditionally refuses surrender. Delicate matter. No hope for K. 

But don’t worry. Everything all right. 

“Warren Smith.” 

“Harkless, if you have the strength to walk, come down before* 
xhe convention. Get here by 10.47. Looks bad. Come if it kills 


“You entrusted me with sole responsibility for all matters pel- 


452 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


taining to ‘Herald.’ Declared yourself mere spectator. Does this 
permit your interfering with my policy for the paper? Decline to 
consider any proposition to relieve me of my duties without proper 
warning and allowance of time. 


“H. Fisbee.” 


CHAPTER XIX 

THE GREAT HARKLESS COMES HOME 

T he accommodation train wandered languidly 
through the early afternoon sunshine, stop¬ 
ping at every village and almost every 
country post-ofl5ce on the line; the engine toot- 
tooting at the road crossings; and, now and again, 
at such junctures, a farmer, struggling with a team 
of prancing horses, would be seen, or, it might be, 
a group of school children, homeward bound from 
seats of learning. At each station, when the train 
came to a stand-still, some passenger, hanging head 
and elbows out of his window, like a quilt draped 
over a chair, would address a citizen on the plat¬ 
form: 

“Hey, Sam, how’s Miz Bushkirk.?” 

“She’s wal.” 

“Where’s IMilt, this afternoon.^” 

“Warshing the buggy.” Then at the cry, “All 

’board”—‘‘See you Sunday over at Amo.” 

453 


454 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“You make Milt come. I’ll be there, shore. 
So long.” 

There was an impatient passenger in the smoker, 
who found the stoppages at these wayside hamlets 
interminable, both in frequency and in the delay 
at each of them; and while the dawdling train re¬ 
mained inert, and the moments passed inactive, 
his eyes dilated and his hand clenched till the 
nails bit his palm; then, when the trucks groaned 
and the wheels crooned against the rails once more, 
he sank back in his seat with sighs of relief. Some¬ 
times he would get up and pace the aisle until his 
companion reminded him that this was not certain 
to hasten the hour of their arrival at their des¬ 
tination. 

“I know that,” answered the other, “but I’ve 
got to beat McCune.” 

“By the way,” observed Meredith, “you left 
your stick behind.” 

“You don’t think I need a club to face-” 

Tom choked. “Oh, no. 1 wasn’t thinking of 
your giving H. Fisbee a thrashing. I meant to 
lean on.” 

“I don’t want it. I’ve got to walk lame all my 
life, but I’m not going to hobble on a stick.” Tom 



THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 456 


looked at him sadly; for it was true, and the Cross- 
Roaders might hug themselves in their cells over 
the thought. For the rest of his life John Harkless 
was to walk with just the limp they themselves 
would have had, if, as in former days, their sentence 
had been to the ball and chain. 

The window was open beside the two young men, 
and the breeze swept in, fresh from the wide fields, 
There was a tang in the air; it soothed like a balm, 
but there was a spur to energy and heartiness in its 
crispness, the wholesome touch of fall. John looked 
out over the boundless aisles of corn that stood 
higher than a tall man could reach; long waves 
rippled across them. Here, where the cry of the 
brave had rung in forest glades, where the painted 
tribes had hastened, were marshalled the tasselled 
armies of peace. And beyond these, where the 
train ran between shadowy groves, delicate land¬ 
scape vistas, framed in branches, opened, closed, 
and succeeded each other, and then the travellers 
were carried out into the level open again, and the 
intensely blue September skies ran down to the 
low horizon, meeting the tossing plumes of corn. 

It takes a long time for the full beauty of the 
flat lands to reach a man’s soul; once there, nor 


m THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


hills, nor sea, nor growing fan leaves of palm shall 
suffice him. It is like the beauty in the word 
“Indiana.’* It may be that there are people who 
do not consider “Indiana” a beautiful word; but 
once it rings true in your ears it has a richer sound 
than “Vallombrosa.” 

There was a newness in the atmosphere that day, 
a bright invigoration, that set the blood tingling. 
The hot months were done with, languor was 
routed. Autumn spoke to industry, told of the 
sowing of another harvest, of the tawny shock, of 
the purple grape, of the red apple, and called upon 
muscle and laughter; breathed gaiety into men’s 
hearts. The little stations hummed with bustle and 
noise; big farm wagons rattled away and raced with 
cut-under or omnibus; people walked with quick 
steps; the baggage-masters called cheerily to the 
trainmen, and the brakemen laughed good-bys to 
rollicking girls. 

As they left Gainesville three children, clad in 
calico, barefoot and bareheaded, came romping out 
of a log cabin on the outskirts of the town, and 
waved their hands to the passengers. They climbed 
on the sagging gate in front of their humble do¬ 
main, and laughed for joy to see the monstrous 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 457 

caravan come clattering out of the unknown, bear¬ 
ing the faces by. The smallest child, a little cherubic 
tow-head, whose cheeks were smeared with clean 
earth and the tracks of forgotten tears, stood up¬ 
right on a fence-post, and blew the most impudent 
of kisses to the strangers on a journey. 

Beyond this they came into a great plain, acres 
and acres of green rag-weed where the wheat had 
grown, all so flat one thought of an enormous 
billiard table, and now, where the railroad crossed 
the country roads, they saw the staunch brown 
thistle, sometimes the sumach, and always the 
graceful iron-weed, slender, tall, proud, bowing 
a purple-turbaned head, or shaking in an agony of 
fright when it stood too close to the train. The 
fields, like great, flat emeralds set in new metal, 
v/ere bordered with golden-rod, and at sight of this 
the heart leaped; for the golden-rod is a symbol 
of stored granaries, of ripe sheaves, of the kindness 
of the season generously given and abundantly 
received; more, it is the token of a land of promise 
and of bounteous fulfilment; and the plant stains its 
blossom with yellow so that when it falls it pays 
tribute to the ground which has nourished it. 

From the plain they passed again into a thick 


458 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


wood, where ruddy arrows of the sun glinted among 
the boughs; and, here and there, one saw a courtly 
maple or royal oak wearing a gala mantle of crimson 
and pale brown, gallants of the forest preparing 
early for the October masquerade, when they should 
hold wanton carnival, before they stripped them 
of their finery for pious gray. 

And when the coughing engine drew them to the 
borders of this wood, they rolled out into another 
rich plain of green and rust-colored corn; and far 
to the south John Harkless marked a winding pro¬ 
cession of sycamores, which, he knew, followed the 
course of a slender stream; and the waters of the 
stream flowed by a bank where wild thyme might 
have grown, and where, beyond an orchard and a 
rose-garden, a rustic bench was placed in the shade 
of the trees; and the name of the stream was Hib¬ 
bard’s Creek. Here the land lay flatter than else¬ 
where; the sky came closer, with a gentler benedic¬ 
tion; the breeze blew in, laden with keener spices; 
there was the flavor of apples and the smell of the 
walnut and a hint of coming frost; the immeasurable 
earth lay more patiently to await the husbandman; 
and the whole world seemed to extend flat in line 
with the eye—^for this was Carlow County. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 459 


All at once the anger ran out of John Harkless; 
he was a hard man for anger to tarry with. And in 
place of it a strong sense of home-coming began to 
take possession of him. He was going home. 
“Back to Plattville, where I belong,” he had said; 
and he said it again without bitterness, for it was the 
truth. “Every man cometh to his own place in the 
end.” 

Yes, as one leaves a gay acquaintance of the play¬ 
house lobby for some hard-handed, tried old friend, 
so he would wave the outer world God-speed and 
come back to the old ways of Carlow. What though 
the years were dusty, he had his friends and his 
memories and his old black brier pipe. He had a 
girl’s picture that he should carry in his heart till 
his last day; and if his life was sadder, it was 
infinitely richer for it. His winter fireside should be 
not so lonely for her sake; and losing her, he lost 
not everything, for he had the rare blessing of 
having known her. And what man could wish to 
be healed of such a hurt? Far better to have had 
it than to trot a smug pace unscathed. 

He had been a dullard; he had lain prostrate in 
the wretchedness of his loss. “A girl you could put 
in your hat—and there you have a strong man 


460 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


prone.” He had been a sluggard, weary of himself, 
unfit to fight, a failure in life and a failure in love. 
That was ended; he was tired of failing, and it was 
time to succeed for a while. To accept the worst 
that Fate can deal, and to wring courage from it 
instead of despair, that is success; and it was the 
success that he would have. He would take Fate 
by the neck. But had it done him unkindness 
He looked out over the beautiful, “monotonous” 
landscape, and he answered heartily, “No!” There 
was ignorance in man, but no unkindness; were 
man utterly wise he were utterly kind. The Cross- 
Roaders had not known better; that was all. 

The unfolding aisles of com swam pleasantly 
before John’s eyes. The earth hearkened to man’s 
wants and answered; the clement sun and summer 
rains hastened the fruition. Yonder stood the 
brown haystack, garnered to feed the industrious 
horse who had earned his meed; there was the straw- 
thatched shelter for the cattle. How the orchard 
boughs bent with their burdens! The big red barns 
stood stored with the harvested wheat; and, beyond 
the pasture-lands, tall trees rose against the benign 
sky to feed the glance of a dreamer; the fertile soil 
lay lavender and glossy in the furrow. The farm- 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 461 

houses were warmly built and hale and strong; no 
winter blast should rage so bitterly as to shake 
them, or scatter the hospitable embers on the hearth. 
For this was Carlow County, and he was coming 
home. 

They crossed a by-road. An old man with a 
streaky gray chin-beard was sitting on a sack of 
oats in a seatless wagon, waiting for the train to 
pass. Harkless seized his companion excitedly by 
the elbow. 

‘‘Tommy!” he cried. “It’s Kim Fentriss—look! 
Did you see that old fellow.^” 

“I saw a particularly uninterested and uninter¬ 
esting gentleman sitting on a bag,” replied his 
friend. 

“Why, tnat’s old Kamball Fentriss. He’s going 
to town; he Kves on the edge of the county.” 

“Can this be true?” said Meredith gravely. 

“I wonder,” said Harkless thoughtfully, a few 
moments later, “I wonder why he had them changed 
around.” 

“Who changed around?” 

“The team. He always used to drive the bay on 
the near side, and the sorrel on the off.” 


462 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“And at present,” rejoined Meredith, “I am to 
imderstand that he is driving the sorrel on the near 
side, and bay on the off?” 

“That’s it,” returned the other. “He must have 
worked them like that for some time, because they 
didn’t look uneasy. They’re all right about the 
train, those two. I’ve seen them stand with their 
heads alnwst against a fast freight. See there!” 
He pointed to a white frame farmhouse with green 
blinds. “That’s Win Hibbard’s. We’re just out¬ 
side of Beaver.” 

“Beaver? Elucidate Beaver, boy!” 

“Beaver? Meredith, your information ends at 
home. What do you know of your own State if 
you are ignorant of Beaver. Beaver is that city of 
Carlow County next in importance and population 
to Plattville.” 

Tom put his head out of the window. “I fancy 
you are right,” he said. “I already see five people 
there.” 

Meredith had observed the change in his com¬ 
panion’s mood. He had watched him closely all 
day, looking for a return of his malady; but he came 
to the conclusion that in truth a miracle had been 
wrought, for the lethargy was gone, and vigor seemed 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 403 


to increase in Harkless with every turn of the wheels 
that brought them nearer Plattville; and the nearer 
they drew to Plattville the higher the spirits of both 
the yoimg men rose. Meredith knew what was hap¬ 
pening there, and he began to be a little excited. 
As he had said, there were five people visible at 
Beaver; and he wondered where they lived, as the 
only building in sight was the station, and to satisfy 
his curiosity he walked out to the vestibule. The 
little station stood in deep woods, and brown leaves 
whirled along the platform. One of the five people 
was an old lady, and she entered a rear car. The 
other four were men. One of them handed the con¬ 
ductor a telegram. 

Meredith heard the official say, “All right. Decor¬ 
ate ahead. IT hold it five minutes.” 

The man sprang up the steps of the smoker and 
looked in. He turned to Meredith: “Do you know 
if that gentleman in the gray coat is Mr. Harkless? 
He’s got his back this way, and I don’t want to 
go inside. The—the air in a smoker always gives 
me a spell.” 

“Yes, that’s Mr. Harkless.” 

The man jumped to the platform. “All right, 
^oys,” he said. *‘Rip her out.” 


464 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


The doors of the freight-room were thrown open, 
and a big bimdle of colored stuffs was dragged out 
and hastily unfolded. One of the men ran to the 
further end of the car with a strip of red, white and 
blue bunting, and tacked it securely, while another 
fastened the other extremity to the railing of the 
steps by Meredith. The two companions of this 
pair performed the same operation with another 
strip on the other side of the car. They ran similar 
strips of bunting along the roof from end to end, 
so that, except for the windows, the car was com¬ 
pletely covered by the national colors. Then they 
draped the vestib^jiles with flags. It was all done 
in a trice. 

Meredith’s heart was beating fast. “What’s it 
all about?” he asked. 

“Picnic down the line,” answered the man in 
charge, removing a tack from his mouth. He mo¬ 
tioned to the conductor, “Go ahead.” 

The wheels began to move; the decorators re¬ 
mained on the platform, letting the train pass them; 
but Meredith, craning his neck from the steps, 
saw that they jumped on the last car. 

“What’s the celebration?” asked Harkless, when 
Meredith returned. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 465 

“Picnic down the line,” said Meredith. 

“Nipping weather for a picnic; a little cool, don’t 
you think? One of those fellows looked like a 
friend of mine, Homer Tibbs, or as Homer might 
look if he were in disgrace. He had his hat hung 
on his eyes, and he slouched like a thief in melo¬ 
drama, as he tacked up the bunting on this side 
of the car.” He continued to point out various 
familiar places, finally breaking out enthusi¬ 
astically, as they drew nearer the town, “Hello! 
Look there—beyond the grove yonder! See that 
house?” 

“Yes, John.” 

“That’s the Bowlders’. You’ve got to know the 
Bowlders.” 

“I’d like to.” 

“The kindest people in the world. The Briscoe 
house we can’t see, because it’s so shut in by trees; 
and, besides, it’s a mile or so ahead of us. We’ll 
go out there for supper to-night. Don’t you like 
Briscoe? He’s the best they make. We’ll go up 
town with Judd Bennett in the omnibus, and you’ll 
know how a rapid-fire machine gun sounds. I 
want to go straight to the ‘Herald’ oflSce,” he 
finished, with a suddenly darkening brow. 


m THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


“After all, there may be some explanation,^ 
Meredith suggested, with a little hesitancy. “H, 
Fisbee might turn out more honest than you 
think.’’ 

Harkless threw his head back and laughed; 
it was the first time Meredith had heard 
him laugh since the night of the dance in the 
country. “Honest! A man in the pay of Rod¬ 
ney McCune! Well, we can let it wait till we 
get there. Listen! There’s the whistle that means 
we’re getting near home. Bv heaven, there’s an 
oil-well!” 

“So it is.” 

“And another—three—five—seven—seven in sight 
at once! They tried it three miles south and failed; 
but you can’t fool Eph Watts, bless him! I want 
you to know Watts.” 

They were running by the outlying houses of 
the town, amidst a thousand descriptive exclama¬ 
tions from Harkless, who wished Meredith to meet 
every one in Carlow. But he came to a pause in 
the middle of a word. 

“Do you hear musiche asked abruptly. “Or 
is it only the rhythm of the ties?” 

“It seems to me there’s music in the air;” an- 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 467 

swered his companion. ‘TVe been fancying I 
heard it for a minute or so. There! No—yes. 
It’s a band, isn’t it.?” 

“No; what would a band-” 

The train slowed up, and stopped at a water- 
tank, two hundred yards east of the station, and 
their uncertainty was at an end. 

From somewhere down the track came the de¬ 
tonating boom of a cannon. There was a clash of 
brass, and the travellers became aware of a band 
playing “Marching through Georgia.” Meredith 
laid his hand on his companion’s shoulder. “John,” 

he said, “John-” The cannon fired again, and 

there came a cheer from three thousand throats, 
the shouters all unseen. 

The engine coughed and panted, the train rolled 
on, and in another minute it had stopped along¬ 
side the station in the midst of a riotous jam of 
happy people, who were waving flags and banners 
and handkerchiefs, and tossing their hats high in 
the air, and shouting themselves hoarse. The band 
played in dumb show; it could not hear itself play. 
The people came at the smoker like a long wave, 
and Warren Smith, Briscoe, Keating, and Mr. 
Bence of Gaines were swept ahead of it. Before 


468 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


the train stopped they had rushed eagerly up the 
steps and entered the car. 

Harkless was on his feet and started to meet 
them. He stopped. 

“What does it mean.^” he said, and began te 
grow pale. “Is Hallo way—did McCune—^have 
you-” 

Warren Smith seized one of his hands and Briscoe 
the other. “What does it mean.^” cried Warren: 
“it means that you were nominated for Congress 
at five minutes after one-o’clock this afternoon.” 

“On the second ballot,” shouted the judge, “just 
as young Fisbee planned it, weeks ago.” 

It was one of the great crowds of Carlow’s his¬ 
tory. They had known since morning that he was 
coming home, and the gentlemen of the Recep¬ 
tion Committee had some busy hours; but long 
before the train arrived, everything was ready. 
Homer Tibbs had done his work well at Beaver, 
and the gray-haired veterans of a battery Carlow 
had sent out in ’61 had placed their worn old gun 
in position to fire salutes. At one-o’clock, imme¬ 
diately after the nomination had been made unan¬ 
imous, the Harkless Clubs of Carlow, Amo, and 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 469 

Gaines, secretly organized during the quiet agitation 
preceding the convention, formed on parade in the 
court-house yard, and, with the Plattville Band at 
their head, paraded the streets to the station, to 
make sure of being on hand when the train arrived 
—^it was due in a couple of hours. There they were 
joined by an increasing number of glad enthusiasts, 
all noisy, exhilarated, red-faced with shouting, and 
patriotically happy. As Mr. Bence, himself the 
spoiled child of another county, generously said, 
in a speech, which (with no outrageous pressure) 
he was induced to make during the long wait: “The 
favorite son of Carlow is returning to his Lares 
and Penates like another Cincinnatus accepting the 
call of the people; and, for the first time in six¬ 
teen years, Carlow shall have a representative to 
bear the banner of this district and the flaming 
torch of Progress sweeping on to Washington and 
triumph like a speedy galleon of old. And his 
friends are here to take his hand and do him homage, 
and the number of his friends is as the number 
given in the last census of the population of the 
counties of this district!” 

And, indeed, in this estimate the speaker seemed 
guilty of no great exaggeration. A never inter- 


470 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


mittent procession of pedestrians and vehicles made 
its way to the station; and every wagon, buck- 
board, buggy, and cut-under had its flags or bunt¬ 
ing, or streamer of ribbons tied to the whip. The 
excitement increased as the time grew shorter; 
those on foot struggled for better positions, and 
the people in wagons and carriages stood upon 
seats, while the pedestrians besieged them, climbing 
on the wheels, or balancing recklessly, with feet on 
the hubs of opposite wagons. Everybody was 
bound to see him. When the whistle announced 
the coming of the train, the band began to play, 
the cannon fired, horns blew, and the cheering 
echoed and reechoed till heaven’s vault resounded 
with the noise the people of Carlow were making. 

There was one heart which almost stopped beat¬ 
ing. Helen was standing on the front seat of the 
Briscoe buckboard, with Minnie beside her, and, at 
the commotion, the horses pranced and backed so 
that Lige Willetts ran to hold them; but she did 
not notice the frightened roans, nor did she know 
that Minnie clutched her round the waist to keep 
her from falling. Her eyes were fixed intently on 
the smoke of the far-away engine, and her hand, 
Mfted to her face in an uncertain, tremulous fashion. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 471 


as it was one day in a circus tent, pressed against 
the deepest blush that ever mantled a girl's cheek. 
When the train reached the platform, she saw 
Briscoe and the others rush into the car, and there 
ensued what was to her an almost intolerable pause 
of expectation, while the crowd besieged the win¬ 
dows of the smoker, leaning up and climbing on 
each other’s shoulders to catch the first glimpse of 
him. Briscoe and a red-faced young man, a stranger 
to Plattville, came down the steps, laughing like 
boys, and then Keating and Bence, and then Warren 
Smith. As the lawyer reached the platform, he 
turned toward the door of the car and waved his 
hand as in welcome. 

“Here he is, boys!” he shouted, ‘‘Welcome 
Home!” At that it was as if all the noise that had 
gone befor^ had been mere leakage of pent-up 
enthusiasm. A thousand horns blared deafeningly, 
the whistles of the engine and of Hibbard’s mill 
were added to the din, the court-house bell was 
pealing out a welcome, and the church bells were 
ringing, the cannon thundered, and then cheer on 
cheer shook the air, as John Harkless came out 
under the flags, and passed down the steps of the car. 

When Helen saw him, over the heads of the 


m THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


people and through a hying tumult of flags and 
hats and handkerchiefs, she gave one frightened 
glance about her, and jumped down from her 
high perch, and sank into the back seat of the buck- 
board with her burning face turned from the sta¬ 
tion and her eyes fixed on the ground. She wanted 
to run away, as she had run from him the first 
time she had ever seen him. Then, as now, he 
came in triumph, hailed by the plaudits of his 
fellows; and now, as on that long-departed day of 
her young girlhood, he was borne high over the 
heads of the people, for IVIinnie cried to her to 
look; they were carrying him on their shoulders 
to his carriage. She had had only that brief glimpse 
of him, before he was lost in the crowd that was 
so glad to get him back again and so proud of him; 
but she had seen that he looked very white and 
solemn. 

Briscoe and Tom Meredith made their way 
through the crowd, and climbed into the buckboard. 
*‘A11 right, Lige,” called the judge to Willetts, who 
was at the horses’ heads. “You go get into line 
with the boys; they want you. We’ll go down on 
Main Street to see the parade,” he explained to 
the ladies, gathering the reins in his hand. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 473 


He clucked to the roans, and by dint of backing 
and twisting and turning and a hundred intricate 
manoeuvres, accompanied by entreaties and remon¬ 
strances and objurgations, addressed to the occu¬ 
pants of surrounding vehicles, he managed to 
extricate the buckboard from the press; and once 
free, the team went down the road toward Main 
Street at a lively gait. The judge’s call to the colts 
rang out cheerily; his handsome face was one broad 
smile. “This is a big day for Carlow,” he said; 
“I don’t remember a better day’s work in twenty 
years.” 

“Did you tell him about Mr. Halloway?” asked 
Helen, leaning forward anxiously. 

“Warren told him before we left the car,” an¬ 
swered Briscoe. “He’d have declined on the spot, 
I expect, if we hadn’t made him sure it was all 
right with Hedge.” 

“If I understood what Mr. Smith was saying. 
Halloway must have behaved very well,” said 
Meredith. 

The judge laughed. “He saw it was the only 
way to beat McCune, and he’d have given his life 
and Harkless’s, too, rather than let McCune have 


474 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


“Why didn’t you stay with him, Tom?” asked 
Helen. 

“With Halloway? I don’t know him.” 

“One forgives a generous hilarity anything, even 
such quips as that,” she retorted. “Why did you 
not stay with Mr. Harkless?” 

“That’s very hospitable of you,” laughed the 
young man. “You forget that I have the felicity 
to sit at your side. Judge Briscoe has been kind 
enough to ask me to review the procession from his 
buckboard and to sup at his house with other dis¬ 
tinguished visitors, and I have accepted.” 

“But didn’t he wish you to remain with 
him?” 

“But this second I had the honor to inform you 
that I am here distinctly by his invitation.” 

‘^Hisr 

“Precisely, his. Judge Briscoe, Miss Sherwood 
will not believe that you desire my presence. If 
I intrude, pray let me—” He made as if to spring 
from the buckboard, and the girl seized his arm 
impatiently. 

“You are a pitiful nonsense-monger!” she cried; 
and for some reason this speech made him turn 
his glasses upon her gravely. Her lashes fell before 


TIIE GENTLEIMAN EEOxM; INDIANA 475 

his gaze, and at that he took her hand and kissed 
it quickly. 

“No, no,” she faltered. “You must not think it. 
It isn’t—^you see, I—there is nothing!” 

“You shall not dull the edge of my hilarity,” he 
answered, “especially since so much may be for¬ 
given it.” 

“Why did you leave Mr. Harkless.^” she asked, 
without raising her eyes. 

“My dear girl,” he replied, “because, for some 
inexplicable reason, my lady cousin has not nomi¬ 
nated me for Congress, but instead has chosen to 
bestow that distinction upon another, and, I may 
say, an unworthier and unfitter man than I. And 
oddly enough, the non-discriminating multitude 
were not cheering for me; the artillery was not in 
action to celebrate me; the band was not playing 
to do me honor; therefore why should I ride in the 
midst of a procession that knows me not? Why 
should I enthrone me in an open barouche—a 
little faded and possibly not quite seeme as to 
its springs, but still a barouche—with four 
white horses to draw it, and draped with silken 
fiags, both barouche and steeds? Since these 
things were not for me, I flew to your side to 


476 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


dissemble my spleen under the licensed prattle 
of a cousin/’ 

“Then who is with him?” 

“The population of this portion of our State, I 
take it.” 

“Oh, it’s all right,” said the judge, leaning back 
to speak to Helen. “Keating and Smith and your 
father are to ride in the carriage with him. You 
needn’t be afraid of any of them letting him know 
that H. Eisbee is a lady. Everybody understands 
about that; of course they know it’s to be left to 
you to break it to him how well a girl has run his 
paper.” The old gentleman chuckled, and looked 
out of the comer of his eye at his daughter, whose 
expression was inscmtahle. 

“I!” cried Helen. “/ tell him! No one must 
tell him. He need never know it.” 

Briscoe reached back and patted her cheek. 
“How long do you suppose he will be here in Platt- 
ville without it’s leaking out?” 

“But they kept guard over him for months and 
nobody told him.” 

“Ah,” said Briscoe, “but this is different.” 

“No, no, no!” she exclaimed. “It must be kept 
from him somehow!” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 477 

“He’ll know it by to-morrow, so you’d better 
tell him this evening.” 

“This evening 

“Yes. You’ll have a good chance.” 

“I wiU?” 

“He’s coming to supper with us. He and your 
father, of course, and Keating and Bence and Bos¬ 
well and Smith and Tom Martin and Lige. We’re 
going to have a big time, with you and Minnie to 
do the honors; and we’re all coming into town 
afterwards for the fireworks; I’ll let him drive you 
in the phaeton. You’ll have plenty of time to talk 
it over with him and tell him all about it.” 

Helen gave a little gasp. “Never!” she cried. 
“Never!” 

The buckboard stopped on the “Herald” comer, 
and here, and along Main Street, the line of vehicles 
which had followed it from the station took their 
places. The Square was almost a solid mass of 
bunting, and the north entrance of the court-house 
had been decorated with streamers and flags, so 
as to make it a sort of stand. Hither the crowd 
was already streaming, and hither the procession 
made its way. At intervals the cannon boomed, 
and Schofields’ Henry was winnowing the air with 


478 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


his bell; nobody had a better time that day than 
Schofields’ Henry, except old Wilkerson, who was 
with the procession. 

In advance, came the boys, whooping and somer¬ 
saulting, and behind them, rode a band of mounted 
men, sitting their horses like cavalrymen, led by 
the sheriff and his deputy and Jim Bardlock; then 
followed the Harkless Club of Amo, led by Bos¬ 
well, with the magnanimous Halloway himself 
marching in the ranks; and at sight of this the 
people shouted hke madmen. But when Helen’s 
eye fell upon his fat, rather unhappy face, she felt 
a pang of pity and imreasoning remorse, which 
warned her that he who looks upon politics when 
it is red must steel his eyes to see many a man 
with the heart-bum. After the men of Amo, came 
the Harkless Club of Gainesville, Mr. Bence in the 
van with the step of a grenadier. There followed 
next, Mr. Ephraim Watts, bearing a light wand 
in his hand and leading a detachment of workers 
from the oil-fields in their stained blue overalls 
and blouses; and, after them, came Mr. Martin 
and Mr. Landis at the head of an organization 
recognized in the “Order of Procession,” printed in 
the “Herald,” as the Business Men of Plattville. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 479 


They played in such magnificent time that every 
high-stepping foot in all the line came down with 
the same jubilant plunk, and lifted again with a 
xmanimity as complete as that of the last vote the 
convention had taken that day. The leaders of 
the procession set a brisk pace, and who could have 
set any other kind of a pace when on parade to the 
strains of such a band, playing such a tune as ‘‘A 
New Coon in Towm,” with all its might and main? 

But as the line swung into the Square, there came 
a moment when the tune was ended, the musicians 
paused for breath, and there fell comparative quiet. 
Amongst the ranks of Business Men ambled Mr. 
Wilkerson, singing at the top of his voice, and now 
he could be heard distinctly enough for those near 
to him to distinguish the melody with which it 
was his intention to favor the public: 

“Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! 

As we go marching on.” 

The words, the air, that husky voice, recalled to 
the men of Carlow another day and another pro¬ 
cession, not like this one., And the song Wilkerson 
was singing is the one song every Northem-born 
American knows and can sing. The leader of the 
band caught the sound, signalled to his men; twenty 


480 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


instruments rose as one to twenty mouths; the 
snare-drum rattled, the big drum crashed, the 
leader lifted his baton high over his head, and 
music burst from twenty brazen throats: 

“Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!” 

Instantaneously, the whole procession began to 
sing the refrain, and the people in the street, and 
those in the wagons and carriages, and those lean¬ 
ing from the windows joined with one accord, the 
ringing bells caught the time of the song, and the 
upper air reverberated in the rhythm. 

The Harkless Club of Carlow wheeled into Main 
Street, two hundred strong, with their banners and 
transparencies. Lige Willetts rode at their head, 
and behind him strode young William Todd and 
Parker and Ross Schofield and Homer Tibbs and 
Hartley Bowlder, and even Bud Tip worthy held a 
place in the ranks through his connection with the 
“Herald.’’ They were all singing. 

And, behind them, Helen saw the flag-covered 
barouche and her father, and beside him sat John 
Harkless with his head bared. 

She glanced at Briscoe; he was standing on the 
front seat with Minnie beside him, and both were 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 481 

singing. Meredith had climbed upon the back seat 
and was nervously fumbling at a cigarette. 

“Sing, Tom!” the girl cried to him excitedly. 

“I should be ashamed not to,” he answered; and 
dropped the cigarette and began to sing “John 
Brown’s Body” with all his strength. With that 
she seized his hand, sprang up beside him, and over 
the swelling chorus her full soprano rose, lifted 
with all the power in her. 

The barouche rolled into the Square, and, as it 
passed, Harkless turned, and bent a sudden gaze 
upon the group in the buckboard; but the western 
sun was in his eyes, and he only caught a glimpse 
of a vague, bright shape and a dazzle of gold, and 
he was borne along and out of view, down the 
singing street. 

“Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! 

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! 

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! 

As we go marching on!” 

The barouche stopped in front of the court¬ 
house, and he passed up a lane they made for him 
to the steps. When he turned to them to speak, 
they began to cheer again, and he had to wait for 
them to quiet down. 


482 THE GENTLEjVIAN FROM INDIANA 


“We can’t hear him from over here,” said Bris¬ 
coe, “we’re too far off. Mr. Meredith, suppose 
you take the ladies closer in, and I’ll stay with the 
horses. You want to hear his speech.” 

“He is a great man, isn’t he?” Meredith said to 
Helen, gravely, as he handed her out of the buck- 
board. “I’ve been trymg to realize for the last 
few minutes, that he is the same old fellow I’ve 
been treating so familiarly all day long.” 

“Yes, he is a great man,” she answered. “This 
is only the beginning.” 

“That’s true,” said Briscoe, who had overheard 
her. “He’ll go pretty far. A man that people know 
is steady and strong and level-headed can get what¬ 
ever he wants, because a public man can get any¬ 
thing, if people know he’s safe and honest and they 
can rely on him for sense. It sounds like a simple 
matter; but only three or four public men in the 
country have convinced us that they are like that. 
Hurry along, young people.” 

Crossing the street, they met Miss Tibbs; she 
was wiping her streaming eyes with the back of 
her left hand and still mechanically waving her 
handkerchief with her right. “Isn’t it beautiful?” 
she said, not ceasing to flutter, unconsciously, the 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROIM INDIANA 483 

little square of cambric. “There was such a throng 
that I grew faint and had to come away. I don’t 
mind your seeing me crying. Pretty near every¬ 
body cried when he walked up to the steps and 
we saw that he was lame.” 

Standing on the outskirts of the crowd, they 
could hear the mellow ring of Harkless’s voice, but 
only fragments of the speech, for it was rather 
halting, and was not altogether clear in either 
rhetoric or delivery; and Mr. Bence could have 
been a good deal longer in saying what he had to 
say, and a thousand times more oratorical. Never¬ 
theless, there was not a man or woman present 
who did not declare that it was the greatest speech 
ever heard in Plattville; and they really thought 
so—to such lengths are loyalty and friendship some¬ 
times carried in Carlow and Amo and Gaines. 

He looked down upon the attentive, earnest faces 
and into the kindly eyes of the Hoosier country 
people, and, as he spoke, the thought kept recurring 
to him that this was the place he had dreaded to 
come back to; that these were the people he had 
wished to leave—these, who gave him everything 
they had to give—and this made it difficult to keep 
his tones steady and his throat clear. 


484 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 


Helen stood so far from the steps (nor could she 
be induced to penetrate further, though they would 
have made way for her) that only fragments 
reached her, but what she heard she remembered: 

‘T have come home . . . Ordinarily a man needs 
to fall sick by the wayside or to be set upon by 
thieves, in order to realize that nine-tenths of the 
world is Samaritan, and the other tenth only too 
busy or too ignorant to be. Down here he realizes 
it with no necessity of illness or wounds to bring 
it out; and if he does get hurt, you send him to 
Congress. . . . There will be no other in Washing¬ 
ton so proud of what he stands for as I shall be. 
To represent you is to stand for realities—fearless¬ 
ness, honor, kindness. . . . We are people who take 
what comes to us, and it comes bountifully; we 
are rich—oh, we are all Americans here! . . . This 
is the place for a man who likes to live where people 
are kind to each other, and where they have the 
old-fashioned way of saying ‘Home.’ Other places, 
they don’t seem to get so much into it as we do. 
And to come home as I have to-day. ... I have 
come home. ...” 

Every one meant to shake hands with him, and, 
when the speech was over, those nearest swooped 


THE gentleman FROM INDIANA 485 


upon him, cheering and waving, and grasping ait: 
his hand. Then a line was formed, and they began 
to defile by him, as he stood on the steps, and 
one by one they came up, and gave him hearty 
greetings, and passed on through the court-house 
and out at the south door. Tom Meredith and 
Minnie Briscoe came amongst the others, and Tom 
said only, “Good old boy,” as he squeezed his 
friend’s hand; and then, as he went down the hall, 
wiping his glasses, he asked Minnie if she believed 
the young man on the steps had risen from a sick 
bed that morning. 

It was five-o’clock when Harldess climbed the 
stairs to the “Herald” ofiSce, and his right arm and 
hand were aching and limp. Below him, as he 
reached the landing, he could see boys selling 
extras containing his speech (taken by the new 
reporter), and long accounts of the convention, 
of the nominee’s career, and the celebration of his 
home-coming. The sales were rapid; for no one 
could resist the opportunity to read in print descrip¬ 
tions of what his eyes had beheld and his ears had 
heard that day. 

Ross Schofield was the only person in the edito¬ 
rial room, and there was nothing in his appearance 


486 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

which should cause a man to start and fall back 
from the doorway; but that was what Harkless did. 

“What’s the matter, Mr. Harldess.?” cried Ross, 
hurrying forward, fearing that the other had been 
suddenly reseized by illness. 

“\Miat are those asked Harkless, with a gesture 
of his hand which seemed to include the entire 
room. 

“Those!” repeated Ross, staring blankly. 

“Those rosettes—these streamers—that stove¬ 
pipe—all this blue ribbon.” 

Ross turned pale. “Ribbon.^” he said, inquir¬ 
ingly. “Ribbon.^^” He seemed unable to perceive 
the decorations referred to. 

“Yes,” answered John; “these rosettes on the 
chairs, that band, and-” 

“Oh!” Ross exclaimed. “That.^” He fingered 
the band on the stovepipe as if he saw it for the 
first time. “Yes; I see.” 

“But what are they for.?” asked Harkless, touch¬ 
ing one of the streamers curiously. 

“Why—it’s—it’s likely meant for decorations.” 

John picked up the ink-well, staring in complete 
amazement at the hard knot of ribbon with which 
it was garnished. 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 487 

“They seem to have been here some time.” 

“They have; I reckon they’re almost due to be 
called in. They’ve be’n up ever sence—sence-” 

“Who put them up, Ross.^” 

“We did.” 

“What forr 

Ross was visibly embarrassed. “Why—fer—fer 
the other editor.” 

“For ]VIr. Fisbee.?” 

“Land, no! You don’t suppose we’d go to work 
and bother to brisken things up fer that old gen¬ 
tleman, do you.^” 

“I meant young Mr. Fisbee—he is the other 
editor, isn’t he.^” 

“Oh!” said Ross, coughing. “Young Mr. Fisbee? 
Yes; we put ’em up fer him.” 

“You did! Did he appreciate them?” 

“Well—he seemed to—kind of like ’em.” 

“'V^Tiere is he now? I came here to find him.” 

“He’s gone.” 

“Gone? Hasn’t he been here this afternoon?” 

“Yes; some ’the time. Come in and stayed 
durin’ the leevy you was holdin’, and saw the 
extra off all right.” 

“When will he be back?” 



488 THE GENTLEmN FROM INDIANA 


‘‘Sence it’s be’n a daily he gits here by eight, 
after supper, but don’t stay very late; the new 
man and old Mr. Fisbee and Parker look after 
whatever comes in' late, unless it’s something 
special. He’ll likely be here by half-past eight at 
the farthest off.” 

‘T can’t wait till then.” John took a quick turn 
about the room. ‘T’ve been wanting to see him 
every minute since I got in,” he said impatiently, 
‘‘and he hasn’t been near me. Nobody could even 
point him out to me. Where has he gone.^ I w^ant 
to see him now** 

“Want to discharge him again said a voice 
from the door, and turning, they saw that Mr. 
Martin stood there observing them. 

“No,” said Harkless; “I want to give him the 
‘Herald.’ Do you know where he is?” 

Mr. Martin stroked his beard deliberately. “The 
person you speak of hadn’t ort to be very hard to 
find—in Carlow. The committee was reckless 
enough to hire that carriage of yours by the day, 
and Keating and Warren Smith are setting in it 
up at the corner,. with their feet on the cushions 
to show they’re used to ridin’ around with four 
white horses every day in the week. It’s waitin’ 


THE GENTLEIMAN FROM INDIANA 489 

till youTe ready to go out to Briscoe’s. It’s an 
hour before supper time, and you can talk to young 
Fisbee all you want. Fle’s out there.” 

As they drove along the pike, Harkless’s three 
companions kept up a conversation sprightly be¬ 
yond the mere exhilaration of the victorious; but 
John sat almost silent, and, in spite of their liveli¬ 
ness, the others eyed him a little anxiously now 
and then, knowing that he had been living on 
excitement through a physically exhausting day, and 
they were fearful lest his nerves react and bring 
him to a breakdown. But the healthy flush of his 
cheek was reassuring; he looked steady and strong, 
and they were pleased to believe that the stirring-up 
was what he needed. 

It had been a strange and beautiful day to him, 
begun in anger, but the sun was not to go down 
upon his wrath; for his choleric intention had al¬ 
most vanished on his homeward way, and the first 
words Smith had spoken had lifted the veil of 
young Fisbee’s duplicity, had shown him with what 
fine intelhgence and supreme delicacy and sympathy 
young Fisbee had worked for him, had understood 
him, and had made him. If the open assault on 
McCune had been pressed, and the damnatory evi- 


490 THE GENTLEMAN FEO^I INDIANA 


dence published in Harkless’s own paper, while 
Harkless himself was a candidate and rival, John 
would have felt dishonored. The McCune papers 
could have been used for Halloway’s benefit, but 
not for his own; he v/ould not ride to success on 
another man’s ruin; and young Fisbee had under¬ 
stood and had saved him. It was a point of honor 
that many would have held finicky and incon¬ 
sistent, but one which young Fisbee had compre¬ 
hended was vital to Harkless. 

And this was the man he had discharged like a 
dishonest servant; the man who had thrown what 
was (in Carlow’s eyes) riches into his lap; the man 
who had made his paper, and who had made him, 
and saved him. Harkless wanted to see young 
Fisbee as he longed to see only one other person 
in the world. Two singular things had happened 
that day which made his craving to see Helen 
almost unbearable—just to rest his eyes upon her 
for a little while, he could ask no more. And as 
they passed along that well-remembered road, every 
tree, every leaf by the wayside, it seemed, spoke 
to him and called upon the dear memory of his 
two walks with her—into town and out of town, 
on show-day. He wondered if his heart was tc 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 491 

project a wraith of her before him whenever he 
was deeply moved, for the rest of his life. For 
twice to-day he had seen her whom he knew to be 
so far away. She had gone back to her friends in 
the north, Tom had said. Twice that afternoon 
he had been momentarily, but vividly, conscious 
of her as a living presence. As he descended from 
the car at the station, his eyes, wandering out over 
the tumultuous crowd, had caught and held a 
picture for a second—a graceful arm upraised, and 
a gloved hand pressed against a blushing cheek 
under a hat such as is not worn in Carlow; a little 
figure poised apparently in air, full-length above 
the crowd about her; so, for the merest flick of 
time he had seen her, and then, to his straining 
eyes, it was as though she were not. She had 
vanished. And again, as his carriage reached the 
Square, a feeling had come to him that she was 
near him; that she was looking at him; that he 
should see her when the carriage turned; and in 
the same instant, above the singing of a multitude, 
he heard her voice as if there had been no other, 
and once more his dazzled eyes beheld her for a 
second; she was singing, and as she sang she leaned 
toward him from on high with the most ineffable 


492 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


loc^ of tenderness and pride and affection he had 
ever seen on a woman’s face; such a look, he thought, 
as she would wear if she came to love some archangel 
(her love should be no less) with all of her heart 
and soul and strength. And so he knew he had 
seen a vision. But it was a cruel one to visit a 
man who loved her. He had summoned his philos¬ 
ophy and his courage in his interview with himself 
on the way to Carlow, and they had answered; 
but nothing could answer if his eyes were to play 
him tricks and bring her visibly before him, and 
with such an expression as he had seen upon her 
face. It was too real. It made his eyes yearn for 
the sight of her with an ache that was physical. 
And even at that moment, he saw, far ahead of 
them on the road, two figures standing in front of 
the brick house. One was unmistakable at any dis¬ 
tance. It was that of old Fisbee; and the other was 
a girl’s: a light, small figure without a hat, and the 
low, western sun dwelt on a head that shone with 
gold. Harkless put his hand over his eyes with a 
pain that was hke the taste of hemlock in nectar. 

“Sun in your eyes?” asked Keating, lifting his 
hat, so as to shield the other’s face. 

“Yes.” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 493 


When he looked again, both figures were gone. 
He made up his mind that he would think of the 
only other person who could absorb his attention, 
at least for a time; very soon he would stand face to 
face with the six feet of brawn and intelligence and 
manhood that was young Fisbee. 

“You are sure he is there?’’ he asked Tom 
Martin. 

“Yes,” answered Martin, with no need to inquire 
whom the editor meant. “I reckon,” he continued, 
solemnly, peering at the other from xmder his rusty 
hat-brim, “I reckon when you see him, maybe you’ll 
want to put a kind of codicil to that deed to the 
‘Herald.’ ” 

“How’s that, Martin?” 

“Why, I guess maybe you’ll—well, wait till you 
see him.” 

“I don’t want to wait much longer, when I 
remember what I owe him and how I have used 
him, and that I have been here nearly three hours 
without seeing him.” 

As they neared the brick house Harkless made 
out, through the trees, a retreative flutter of skirts 
on the porch, and the thought crossed his mind that 
Minnie had flown indoors to give some final direc- 


494 THE GENTLEJtlAN FROM INDIANA 


tions toward the preparation of the banquet; but 
when the barouche halted at the gate, he was 
surprised to see her waving to him from the steps, 
while Tom Meredith and Mr. Bence and Mr. Bos¬ 
well formed a little court around her. Lige Willetts 
rode up on horse back at the same moment, and the 
judge was waiting in front of the gate. Harkless 
stepped out of the barouche and took his hand. 

‘T was told young Fisbee was here.’’ 

“Young Fisbee is here,” said the judge. 

“Where, please, Briscoe.^” 

“Want to see him right off.^” 

“I do, very much.” 

“You’ll withdraw his discharge, I expect, now?” 

“Ah!” exclaimed the other. “I want to make 
him a present of the ‘Herald,’ if he’ll take it.” He 
turned to Meredith, who had come to the gate. 
“Tom, where is he?” 

Meredith put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, 
and answered: “I don’t know. God bless you, old 
fellow!” 

“The truth is,” said the judge, as they entered the 
gate, “that when you drove up, young Fisbee ran 
into the house. IVIinnie—” He turned, but his 
daughter had disappeared; however, she came to the 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 495 


door, a moment later, and shook her head mysteri¬ 
ously at her father. 

“Not in the house,” she said. 

Mr. Fisbee came around the corner of the porch 
and went toward Harkless. “Fisbee,” cried the 
latter, “where is your nephew?” 

The old man took his hand in both his own, and 
looked him between the eyes, and thus stood, while 
there was a long pause, the others watching them. 

“You must not say that I told you,” he said at 
last. “Go into the garden.” 

But when Harkless’s step crunched the garden 
path there was no one there. Asters were blooming 
in beds between the green rose-bushes, and their 
many-fingered hands were flung open in wide 
surprise that he should expect to find young Fisbee 
there. It was just before sunset. Birds were 
gossiping in the sycamores on the bank. At the 
foot of the garden, near the creek, there were some 
tall hydrangea bushes, flower-laden, and, beyond 
them, one broad shaft of the sun smote the creek 
bends for a mile in that flat land, and crossed 
the garden like a bright, taut-drawn veil. Hark¬ 
less passed the bushes and stepped out into 


406 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

this gold brilliance. Then he uttered a cry and 
stopped. 

Helen was standing beside the hydrangeas, with 
both hands against her cheeks and her eyes fixed 
on the ground. She had run away as far as she 
could run; there were high fences extending down 
to the creek on each side, and the water was beyond. 

^‘Your he said. ^^You—your 

She did not lift her eyes, but began to move away 
from him with little backward steps. When she 
reached the bench on the bank, she spoke with a 
quick intake of breath and in a voice he scarcely 
heard. It was the merest whisper, and her words 
came so slowly that sometimes minutes separated 
them. 

“Can you—will you keep me—on the ‘Herald’.^” 

“Keep you-” 

“Will you—let me—help.^” 

He came near her. “I don’t understand. Is it 
you—you—who are here again 

“Have you—forgiven me? You know now why 
I wouldn’t—resign? You forgive my—that tele¬ 
gram?” 

“What telegram?” 

“That one that came to you—this morning.” 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 497 

*'Your telegram?” 

“Yes.” 

“Did you send me one?” 

“Yes.” 

“It did not come to me.” 

“Yes—it did.” 

“But there— What was it about?” 

“It was signed,” she said, “it was signed—” 
She paused and turned half way, not lifting the 
downcast lashes; her hand, laid upon the arm of the 
bench, was shaking; she put it behind her. Then 
her eyes were lifted a little, and, though they did 
not meet his, he saw them, and a strange, frightened 
glory leaped in his heart. Her voice fell still lower 
and two heavy tears rolled down her cheeks. “It 
was signed,” she whispered, “it was signed—‘H. 
Eisbee.’ ” 

He began to tremble from head to foot. There 
was a long silence. She had turned quite away 
from him. When he spoke, his voice was as low as 
hers, and he spoke as slowly as she had. 

“You mean—then—it was—^you?” 

“Yes.” 

“You!” 

“Yes.” 


498 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 


‘‘And you have been here all the time?” 

“All—all except the week you were—hurt, and 
that—that one evening.” 

The bright veil which wrapped them was drawn 
away, and they stood in the silent, gathering dusk. 

He tried to loosen his neck-band; it seemed to be 
choking him. “I—I can’t—I don’t comprehend it. 
I am trying to realize what it-” 

“It means nothing,” she answered. 

“There was an editorial, yesterday,” he said, “an 
editorial that I thought was about Rodney McCune. 
Did you write it?” 

“Yes.” 

“It was about—me—wasn’t it?” 

“Yes.” 

“It said—it said—that I had won the love of 
every person in Carlow County.” 

Suddenly she found her voice. “Do not misun¬ 
derstand me,” she said rapidly. “I have done the 
little that I have done out of gratitude.” She faced 
him now, but without meeting his eyes. “I told 
you, remember, that you would understand some 
day what I meant by that, and the day has come. 
I owed you more gratitude than a woman ever 
owed a man before, I think, and I would have died 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 499 


to pay a part of it. I set every gossip’s tongue in 
Rouen clacking at the very start, in the merest 
amateurish preparation for the work Mr. Macauley 
gave me. That was nothing. And the rest has 
been the happiest time in my life. I have only 
pleased myself, after all!” 

“What gratitude did you owe me.^” 

“What gratitude.? For what you did for my 
father.” 

“I have only seen your father once in my life— 
at your table at the dance supper, that night.” 

“Listen. My father is a gentle old man with 
white hair and kind eyes. You saw my uncle, that 
night; he has been as good to me as a father, since 
I was seven years old, and he gave me his name by 
law and I lived with him. My father came to see 
me once a year; I never came to see him. He 
always told me everything was well with him; that 
his life was happy. Once he lost the little he had 
left to him in the world, his only way of making his 
living. He had no friends; he was hungry and 
desperate, and he wandered. I was dancing and 
going about wearing jewels—only—I did not know. 
All the time the brave heart wrote me happy letters. 
I should have known, for there was one who did. 


500 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

and who saved him. When at last I came to sfen 
my father, he told me. He had written of his idol 
before; but it was not till I came that he told it all 
to me. Do you know what I felt? While his 
daughter was dancing cotillions, a stranger had 
taken his hand—and—” A sob rose in her throat 
and checked her utterance for a moment; but she 
threw up her head and met his eyes proudly. “Grati¬ 
tude, Mr. Harkless!” she cried. ‘T am James 
Fisbee’s daughter.” 

He fell back from the bench with a sharp exclama¬ 
tion, and stared at her through the gray twilight. 
She went on hurriedly, again not looking at him: 

“When you showed me that you cared for me— 
when you told me that you did—I—do you think 
I wanted to care for you? I wanted to do something 
to show you that I could be ashamed of my vile 
neglect of him—something to show you his daughter 
could be grateful. If I had loved you, what I did 
would have been for that—and I could not have 
done it. And how could I have shown my grati¬ 
tude if I had done it for love? And it has been such 
dear, happy work, the little I have done, that it 
seems, after all, that I have done it for love of myself. 
But—but when you first told me—” She broke off 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 501 


witE a strange, fluttering, half inarticulate little 
laugh that was half tears; and then resumed in 
another tone: “When you told me you cared that 
night—that night we were here—^how could I be 
sure? It had been only two days, you see, and even 
if I could have been sure of myself, why, I couldn’t 
have told you. Oh! I had so brazenly thrown myself 
at your head, time and again, those two days, in 
my—my worship of your goodness to my father and 
my excitement in recognizing in his friend the hero 
of my girlhood, that you had every right to think I 
cared; but if—^but if I had—if I had—loved you 
with my whole soul, I could not have—why, no 
woman could have—I mean the sort of girl I am 
couldn’t have admitted it—must have denied it. 
And what I was trying to do for you when we met 
in Rouen was—was courting you. You surely see 
I couldn’t have done it if I had cared. It would 
have been brazen! And do you think that then I 
could have answered—‘Yes’—even if I wanted to— 
even if I had been sure of myself? And now—” 

Her voice sank again to a whisper. “And now-” 

From the meadows across the creek, and over the 
fields, came a far tinkling of farm-bells. Three 
months ago, at this hour, John Harkless had 


502 THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 

listened to that sound, and its great lonesomeness 
had touched his heart like a cold hand; but now, as 
the mists were rising from the water and the small 
stars pierced the sky one by one, glinting down 
through the dim, immeasurable blue distances, he 
found no loneliness in heaven or earth. He leaned 
forward toward her; the bench was between them. 
The last light was gone; evening had fallen. 

‘‘And now—” he said. 

She moved backward as he leaned nearer. 

“You promised to remember on the day you 
understood,’’ she answered, a little huskily, “that it 
was all from the purest gratitude.” 

“And—and there is nothing else.?” 

“If there were,” she said, and her voice grew more 
and more unsteady, “if there were, can’t you see 
that what I have done—” She stopped, and theii^ 
suddenly, “Ah, it would have been brazen!’’ 

He looked up at the little stars and he heard the 
bells, and they struck into his heart like a dirge. 
He made a singular gesture of abnegation, and then 
dropped upon the bench with his head bowed 
between his hands. 

She pressed her hand to her bosom, watching him 
in a startled fashion, her eyes wide and her hps 


THE GENTLEIVIAN FROM INDIANA 503 


parted. She took a few quick, short steps toward 
the garden, still watching hin over her shoulder. 

“You mustn’t worry,” he said, not lifting his 
bent head, “I know you’re sorry. I’ll be all right 
in a minute.” 

She gave a hurried glance from right to left and 
from left to right, like one in terror seeking a way of 
escape; she gathered her skirts in her hand, as if to 
run into the garden; but suddenly she turned and 
ran to him—ran to him swiftly, with her great love 
shining from her eyes. She sank upon her knees 
beside him. She threw her arms about his neck 
and kissed him on the forehead. 

“Oh, my dear, don’t you see.?” she whispered, 
“don’t you see—don’t you see.?” 

When they heard the judge calling from the 
orchard, they went back tlirough the garden toward 
the house. It was dark; the whitest asters were 
but gray splotches. There was no one in the 
orchard; Briscoe had gone indoors. “Did you 
know you are to drive me into town in the ohaeton 
for the fireworks.?” she asked. 

“Fireworks.?” 

“Yes; the Great Harkless has come home.” 


504 THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA 

Even in the darkness he could see the look the 
vision had given him when the barouche turned 
into the Square. She smiled upon him and said, 
‘All afternoon I was wishing I could have been 
your mother.’’ 

He clasped her hand more tightly. “This won¬ 
derful world!” he cried. “Yesterday I had a 
doctor—a doctor to cure me of love-sickness!” 

They went on a little way. “We must hurry,” 
she said. “I am sure they have been waiting for 
us.” This was true; they had. 

From the dining-room came laughter and hearty 
voices, and the windows were bright with the light 
of many lamps. By and by, they stood just outside 
the patch of light that fell from one of the windows. 

“Look,” said Helen. “Aren’t they good, dear 
people?” 

“The beautiful people!” he answered. 


THE END 



THE COUNTRY LIFE PBES8 
GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 




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